"I suppose you think," said she, at last, in a low, sweet voice, "that it is easy for a sick girl to go. But I love everything I've been looking at. It may be more beautiful there, but it will not be the same. I shall want to see exactly this stretch of water, and the islands beyond, and the shadows on those woods away off in the distance, and the field where father has mowed the grass for so many years. Every summer, as soon as June came in, I've listened, early in the morning, before noise began, to hear the whetting of the scythe, and then waited for the smell of the hay to come in at the windows.
"Those maples, on the knoll, are my dear friends. I've been glad with them in the spring, and sorry with them in the fall, through all these years. The birds and the dandelions and the violets are all my friends. I've waited for them every year, and it seemed as if the same ones came back. You well people can't understand it. They are near to me. I enter into the life of each one of them, just as you do into the lives of your human friends. Spirits go everywhere, see everything. That will be too much. I'm attached to just this spot of earth. And then I'm attached to myself. I can't realize that I shall be the same, and I don't want to give myself up, poor miserable creature as I am."
Mary Ellen and I could only look at each other in astonishment. Her voice, her seeming strength, and, more than all, her conversation, amazed us. She had always been so trusting, so full of faith in her Heavenly Father.
The next morning, when Mary Ellen went to her bedside, she found her lying awake, with her thin, white fingers clasped about her throat. She looked up with a strange smile, and said,—
"My ruby necklace has come, and next, you know, will be the beautiful home. It is almost ready, David said. But he brought the necklace, and clasped it about my throat. It choked me, and I groaned a little. David went then, and I've been waiting ever since for you to come."
It was noontime when Mary Ellen told me this. I observed that she trembled. "My dear girl," said I, "what makes you tremble so?"
"Why," said she, in a whisper, "there is truly a red circle about her throat. I saw it. 'Tis a warning. She's going to die."
"Maybe," I said, "she is going soon to her beautiful home. But we know no harm can come to our dear sister, she is so good, and so pure." Then, taking her by the hand, I led her along to Emily's room.
Her mother and Miss Joey stood near, weeping. The old man, with the Bible upon his knees, sat at the foot of the bed. He had been reading and praying.
She looked up with a smile, as I entered with Mary Ellen.