Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18.djvu/582

574 we made it for mamma. It seemed as if we were only working at a great black wall, for our minds to have to break through, every time they yearned to go back into the past and sit with her. It was as if the things she chose for us, and loved to see us in, were part of her and of her life with us,—as if she would be able still to think of us in them, and know just how we looked. And it seemed so strange and unsympathizing in us, that, when we loved her so, we should go about all muffled up in darkness, because our God was clothing her in light!"

I answered,—rather slowly and tremulously this time, I fear,—that I had felt so too.

"Then, Katy," resumed she, pleadingly, as she leaned back in her usual attitude in the chair, and made a sign that I might draw her home, "we will not either of us wear it for the other,—without nor within either, will we?—any more than we can help. Don't you remember what dear mamma said once, when you had made two mistakes in your lessons at school, and lost a prize, and took it hard, and somebody was teasing you, with making very light of it, and telling you to think no more about it? You were very sorry and a little offended, and said, you always chose not to be hoodwinked, but to look at things on all sides and in the face. Mamma smiled, and said, 'It is good and brave to look all trials in the face; but among the sides, never forget the bright side, little Katy.' If I had my life to live over again, I would try to mind her more in that. She always said, there lay my greatest fault. I hope and think God has forgiven me, because he makes it so easy for me to be cheerful now."

"Fanny," said I, as we drew near the house, "things in this world are strangely jumbled. Here are you, with your character, to wit, that of a little saint, if you will have the goodness to overlook my saying so, and somebody else's conscience. I have no doubt that, while you are reproaching yourself first for this, then for that and the other, the said somebody else is sinning away merrily, somewhere among the antipodes or nearer, without so much as a single twinge."

Smiling, she shook her head at me; and that was all that passed. She was as cheerful as I tried to be. With regard to the other world, she seemed to have attained unto the perfect love that casteth out fear; and I believe her only regret in leaving this lower one for it was that she could not take me with her. In fact, throughout her illness, her freedom from anxiety about its symptoms—not absolute, but still in strong contrast with her previous tendencies—appeared to her physician, as he acknowledged to me afterwards, even when he considered the frequent flattering illusions of the disease, a most discouraging indication as to the case. But to her it was an infinite mercy; and to me, to have such glimpses to remember of her already in possession of so much of that peace which remaineth unto the people of God.

As the dog-days drew on, a change came, though at first a very gentle one to her, if not to me. She slept more, ate less, grew so thin that she could no more bear the motion of her little wagon, and begged that it might be returned, because it tired her so to think of it.

Then word came that our house was advertised to be sold, unconditionally, at an early day. To move her in that state,—how dreadful it would be! I did not mean to let her know anything about it until I must; but Miss Mehitable, always less remarkable for tact than for good-will, blurted it out before her.

Her brows contracted with a moment's look of pain. "O Katy," she whispered, "I am sorry! That must make you very anxious";—and then she went to sleep.

Evidently it did not make her very anxious, as I knew that it would have done as lately even as two or three months before. What was the remedy? Approaching death. Well, death