"Yes, father," she replied; "I have finished everything, and I do think Our Lady's altar looks beautiful. The ferns make such a good background and show all the flowers to advantage. Oh! I think it will look lovely at benediction to-morrow, and we will take such pains with the music! O father!" she continued, "if mamma could but come and see it and hear Mass! I did so hope she would be well enough. I have prayed so often for it." And her eyes filled with tears.
"Ah! Aimée," said the curé, "sometimes our prayers are very blind ones, and, like the apostles of old, we know not what we ask. I have just been to see your mother—"
"And how did you find her? what do you think of her, father?" said Aimée eagerly. "I do think she is a little better—just a trifle, you know!"
The priest made no answer for a moment, then he said: "Aimée, I do not think she is better, and she has asked me to speak to you. She would not have sorrow come on you too suddenly. My child, my poor child, your mother is going fast where she will no longer need an earthly altar, and where she may gather flowers in the gardens of eternal bliss. You have loved her well, my poor Aimée; will you not give her up to His keeping who hath loved her best of all?"
Aimée had clasped her hands tightly together, and the color had faded from her cheek. She raised her eyes to the sky above, still radiant with its glorious hues. Within those masses of golden clouds she fancied she could see the pathway which should lead to the paradise of God. She turned her eyes to earth again, and, bowing her head, she said, "Fiat voluntas tua. Father," she continued, "I have all but known this for weeks past. I have seen it in the doctor's face, in yours, but I strove to hide it from myself."
"I have hesitated to speak sooner," said the priest, "but this day a letter has come from your uncle in England for your mother, enclosed to me. I took it to her; and its contents are such that it made us feel the time has come when you must face the truth with her and listen to her counsels for the future."
Aimée closed her eyes in sudden anguish, while a sharp pain shot through her heart. "The future, father," she said—"the future without her?"
"Courage, dear child," answered he. "Life is not long. When we look back on the years, they seem but as a day. Even for the young, who knows what its length maybe?" And Aimée knew from the tone of his voice that he was thinking of the fair young sisters, of the merry brothers, one week laughing gayly in the old Chateau de Clareau and planning their future; the next, standing on the scaffold, already wet with the blood of their father and mother. This scene he had witnessed as a young man, escaping by miracle from a similar fate. And it is not to be wondered that from henceforth life had seemed to him but a troubled and rapidly passing dream.
"I must go to the church, now," said the curé, after a moment's pause. Aimée followed him, and, entering in, sank on her knees at the foot of Our Lady's altar, so recently decked by her own nimble fingers. The church was silent, and the last rays of the setting sun came through the west window, made lines of golden light upon the pavement, and cast a halo around the head of the young girl who knelt there absorbed in prayer. Never had Aimée prayed before as she prayed now. It is not till sorrow is fairly upon us, till we realize that our individual battle is begun, that the bitterness which only our own heart knows is really at our lips—that we pray with intensity. Aimée poured out her whole heart, and offered herself to do the will of God in all things. She asked that his will might be done in her and by her; she renounced the happiness of life, if it were necessary for its accomplishment.