Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/257

 bravely and steadily for more than ninety years was almost imperceptible to the watchers at her side.

The next two days were for Betsy a time of bewilderment. She sat, with a dazed look upon her face, receiving the visits of condolence. As one neighbor after another entered and pressed her hand in respectful sympathy, she would rouse herself to say, in a vague, wandering voice: "Mother's gone. Yes, mother's gone." And then she would sink back into silence, while the conversation went on about her in subdued tones.

"Poor Aunt Betsy!" they all said. "She's quite broken. It almost seems as though she were losing her mind."

Ah, it was not her mind she was losing, poor soul! She could have better spared that. It was the heart which had quite gone out of her.

Happily she was saved any acute feeling of sorrow in those first days by the merciful apathy that had fallen upon her. She was like a boat that has slipped its moorings, but floats upon a quiet sea. There were no wild tossings to and fro, no great waves to swallow up the fragile bark. It might drift far out on the darkening waters, or the incoming tide might rudely crush it on the rocks. For the moment it floated gently and aimlessly upon the bosom of the deep.

The stir and excitement of the funeral roused Betsy somewhat. She was pleased with the wreaths and crosses and other floral emblems