Again his eyes closed; and with a smile of serenity upon his lips he slept, or seemed to sleep, tranquilly as an infant. Rosalie raised her head and gazed upon his placid face.
“The peace which passeth all understanding, the peace of heaven is within this breast,” she murmured, laying her head upon his bosom, while the breath of prayer went up like fragrant incense from her crushed and bleeding heart. The women had all withdrawn except one, and she, with pitying and kindly purpose, remained to comfort the young girl, and give aid, if need were, to the father; and so in silence a short interval passed, when again the sick man moved, and the watchful child raised her head to catch and interpret his first look; but, as she met his restless and troubled gaze, she saw that the clear intellect had become clouded, even before he spoke, and then, with his first word, her fear became certainty. Casting an anxious glance toward the window—
“Has she robbed us of them all?” he asked.
“What? dear papa,” inquired Rosalie, tenderly.
“The roses, child; your mother’s roses, and Adalia’s. They asked me for them just now; their bed, they said, was cold, and they wanted their life and bloom to warm the snow which covered it.”
“Dear papa, I will lay them there to-morrow. It brings round the day on which they left us,” said Rosalie, sadly.
“To-morrow, yes!” he responded; “but will there be any to shed them on us when we shall lie there with them, Rosalie?”
“Dear papa, we shall be cared for then as now,” she answered soothingly; “He who brightens our poor room with those sweet flowers, will then have received us where brighter ones bloom—never to decay.”
“Yes, yes,” murmured the invalid: then with an agitated look he asked again—“but has she taken them all? Look, Rosalie—see if there be one bud left and bring it to me, that I may know if it is like those I saw on Adalia’s brow, in the spirit-land. Go, child!” perceiving her still beside him; “Go, and bring me buds and roses from her tree—their fragrance will soothe me like the whisper of her loving voice.”
Thus urged, Rosalie rose to obey him. The fading light of the short winter day was just deepening into twilight, but a bright ray from the still illuminated west shot through the small window and rested on the poor, shorn rose-tree, crowning it with a rosy smile, as if to comfort it for the loss of its flowers. As she approached it, Rosalie was struck with something strange in its appearance, but the day was waning, and her eyes were dimmed with tears, and so no wonder, she thought, that the objects around should seem distorted; nor was it till she stretched out her hand to pluck the roses that she perceived her lovely tree despoiled of its glorious bloom. Bare, mutilated, unsightly she beheld it; not a bud left to tell of what had been, not a single blossom for the hand of filial love to cast upon the sacred place of the dead.