"Ah! Mr. Jones," she said, "do not complain; you have loved your child."

"What are you keeping Miss Gray there for?" pettishly said the voice of Mary, "I want her."

"And here I am, dear," said Rachel, going in to her, "I am come to sit a while with you; for I am sure your poor father wants rest, does he not?"

"I don't want any one to sit with me," impatiently replied Mary, "I am not so ill as all that."

"But do you sleep at night?"

"No, I can't--I am so feverish."

"Well, then, we sit up with you to keep you company," said her father.

This explanation apparently satisfied Mary, who began to talk of other things. She knew not she was dying; whence should the knowledge have come to a mere child like her. None had told her the truth. And she was pa.s.sing away into eternity, unconscious--her heart, her thoughts, her soul full of the shadows of life.

Rachel saw and knew it, and it grieved her. She remembered her little sister's happy and smiling death-bed, and from her heart she prayed that a similar blessing might crown the last hours of little Mary; that she might go to her G.o.d like a child to her father.

And when Richard Jones, after sitting up with them until twelve, went upstairs to rest awhile, and Rachel heard Mary talk of her recovery, and of projects and hopes, vain to her as a dream, she could not help feeling that it was her duty to speak. They were alone, "yes, now," thought Rachel, "now is the time to speak."

Oh! hard and bitter task: to tell the young of death; the hoping that they must not hope; to tell those who would so fondly delay and linger in this valley, that they must depart for the land that is so near, and that seems so far. Rachel knew not how to begin. Mary opened the subject.

"I shall be glad when I am well again," she said, "I am tired of this little room; it seems so dull when I see the sun shine in the street, don't it, Miss Gray?"

"I dare say it does: you remind me of a little story I once read; shall I tell it to you?"

"Oh! yes you may," carelessly replied Mary, yawning slightly; she thought Miss Gray prosy at times.

"It is not a long story," said Rachel timidly, "and here it is; a king was once hunting alone in a wood, when he heard a very beautiful voice singing very sweetly; he went on and saw a poor leper."

"What's a leper?" interrupted Mary.

"Don't you remember the lepers in the Gospel, who were made clean by our Saviour? they were poor things, who had a bad and loathsome complaint, and this man, whom the king heard singing, was one; and the king could not help saying to him, 'how can you sing when you seem in so wretched a condition?' But the leper replied, 'it is because I am in this state that I sing, for as my body decays, I know that the hour of my deliverance draws nigh, that I shall leave this miserable world, and go to my Lord and my G.o.d.'"

Mary looked at Rachel surprised at the impressive and earnest tone with which she spoke.

"Well but, Miss Gray," she said, at length, "what is there like me in this story; I am not a leper, am I?"

"We are all lepers," gently said Rachel, "for we are all sinners, and sin is to the soul what leprosy is to the body; it defiles it, and we all should be glad to die; for Christ has conquered death, and with death sin ends, and our true life, the life in G.o.d begins."

Mary raised herself on one elbow. She looked at Rachel fixedly, earnestly; "Miss Gray," she said; "what do you mean?"

Rachel did not reply--she could not.

"Why do you tell me all these things?" continued Mary.

And still Rachel could not speak.

"Miss Gray," said Mary, "am _I_ going to die?" She looked wistfully in Rachel's face, and the beseeching tone of her young childish voice seemed to pierce Rachel's heart; but she had began; could not, she dared not go back. She rose, she clasped her hands, she trembled from head to foot, tears streamed down her cheek; her voice faltered so that she could scarcely speak, but she mastered it, clear and distinct the words came out. "Mary, we must all obey the will of G.o.d; we came into this world at His will, at His will we must leave it."

"And must I leave it, Miss Gray?" asked Mary, persisting in her questioning like a child.

Rachel stooped over her; the fast tears poured from her face on Mary's pale brow, "yes, my darling," she said softly, "yes, you must leave this miserable earth of trouble and sorrow, and go to G.o.d your friend and your father."

The weakest, the frailest creatures often rise to heroic courage. This fretful, pettish child heard her sentence with some wonder, but apparently without sorrow.

"Don't cry, Miss Gray," she said, "_I_ don't cry; but do you know, it seems so odd that I should die, doesn't it now?"

Rachel did not reply, nor did she attempt it; her very heart was wrung.

Mary guessed, or saw it.

"I wish you would not fret," she said, "I wish you would not. Miss Gray.

_I_ don't, you see."

"Ay," thought Rachel, "you do not, my poor child, for what do you know of death?" And a little while after this, Mary, who felt heavy, fell asleep with her hand in that of Rachel Gray.

CHAPTER XX.

Three days had pa.s.sed.

The morning was gray and dull. He had sat up all night by Mary; for Rachel, exhausted with fatigue, had been unable to come. Poor little Mary, her hour was nigh; she knew it, and her young heart grieved for her father, so soon to be childless. She thought of herself too; she looked over the whole of her young life, and she saw its transgressions and its sins with a sorrow free from faithless dismay; for Rachel had said to her: "Shall we dare to limit for ourselves, or for others, the unfathomed mercy of G.o.d?"

"Father," she suddenly said, "I want to speak to you."

"What is it, my darling?" he asked, bending over her fondly. She looked up in his face, her cheeks flushed with a deeper hectic, her gla.s.sy eyes lit with a brighter light.

"Father," she said, "I have been a naughty child, have I not?"

"No--no, my little pet, never, indeed, never."

"I know I have been naughty, father; I 'have been,' oh! so cross at times; but, father, I could not help it--at least, it seemed as if I could not--my back ached so, and indeed," she added, clasping her hands, "I am very sorry, father, very sorry."

He stooped still nearer to her; he laid his cheek on her pillow; he kissed her hot brow, little Mary half smiled.

"You forgive me, don't you?" she murmured faintly.

"Forgive you! my pet--my darling."

"Yes, pray do," she said.

She could scarcely speak now; there was a film on her eyes, too. He saw it gathering fast, very fast. Suddenly she seemed to revive like a dying flame. Again she addressed him.

"Father!" she said, "why don't you take down the shutters?"

And with singular earnestness she fixed her eyes on his. Take down the shutters? The question seemed a stab sent through his very heart. Yet he mastered himself, and replied: "'Tis early yet; 'tis very early, my darling."

"No 'taint," she said, in her old pettish way, and then she murmured in a low and humbled tone: "Ah! I forget--I forget. I did not mean to be cross again. Indeed I did not, father, so pray forgive me."