What more need I say, ladies; William had regained his reason, and left in company with Lord Kysington. Soon afterward, restored to his rights, he became the sole heir to his family’s estate. Science has verified some rare examples of an intellect restored by a violent moral shock. Thus the fact, which I have related to you, finds its natural explanation; but the good women of the village, who had taken care of Eva Meredith during her illness, and who heard her fervent prayers, still believe that the soul of the mother had passed into the body of her child, even as she besought her Maker.
“She was so good,” the villagers would say, “that God would not deny her any thing.” This unsophisticated belief is established throughout this part of the country. No one mourned Eva as one dead.
“She still lives,” they would say; “speak to her son—it is she who answers.”
And when Lord William Kysington, who had become the possessor of his grandfather’s estate, each year sent abundant alms to the village which witnessed his birth and his mother’s death, the poor exclaimed—“It is the good soul of Madame Meredith still caring for us! Ah! when she goes to heaven, the unfortunate will have cause to be pitied!”
It is not to her tomb that flowers are brought—they are laid on the steps of the altar of the Virgin, where she had so often prayed to Mary to send her son a soul, and depositing their garlands of flowers, the villagers say to each other,
“When she prayed so fervently, the holy Virgin answered her, in low accents—‘I will give thy son a soul.’ ”
The curate bequeathed to our peasants this touching belief. As for myself when Lord William visited me in this village; when he looked at me with eyes so like his mother’s; when his voice, in accents familiar to my ear, said to me, as Madame Meredith had said—“Doctor, my friend, I thank you!” then—you may smile, ladies, if you will—then I wept, and thought with others, that Eva Meredith stood before me.
This unhappy woman, whose life was a series of misfortunes, left at her death a sweet, consoling remembrance, which had no pain for those who loved her. In thinking of her, we think of the mercy of God; and if there exist a hope within our hearts, we hope the more confidingly.
But it is quite late, ladies, your carriages have been at the door this some while. Excuse this long narrative; at my age one cannot be brief, when speaking of the memories of youth. Forgive the old man for having caused you to smile on his arrival, and weep when you condescended to listen to him.