A Plucky Girl

"Are you surprised, West?" she said.

"I am greatly surprised," I answered; "are you better, Mummy?" I bent over her, calling her by the old childish, very childish name. She laid her thin hand on mine, her hand was hot, but her face looked, with the colour in her cheeks, and her eyes so feverishly bright, more beautiful than I had ever seen it. I sat down near her.

"You don't know how nice Nurse Marion has been," she said. "When she found I really wished to get up, she did not oppose me, and she dressed me so carefully, and I am not the least bit tired. I longed to come into the drawing-room, I seem to have quite got over that attack; you need not be anxious, West."

"Very well, I won't be anxious," I answered; "I will sit close to you here and read to you if you will let me."

"I should love to hear you, darling. Read Whittier's poem, 'My Psalm.' Some of the lines have been ringing in my head all day, and I always like the sort of cadence in your voice when you read poetry aloud."

I knew Whittier's "Psalm" well, and without troubling to get the book, I began to repeat the well-known words —

"I mourn no more my vanished years:
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.

The west-winds blow, and singing low,
I hear the glad streams run;
The windows of my soul I throw
Wide open to the sun.

No longer forward nor behind,
I look in hope and fear:
But grateful, take the good I find,
The best of now and here."

As I slowly repeated the words, I noticed that mother's gentle soft eyes were fixed on my face. She raised her hand now and then as if to beat time to the rhythm of the poetry. At last I reached the final verses.

"Say them slowly, West," whispered mother; "I know them so well, and they have comforted me so often. Say them very slowly, in particular that verse which speaks about death as 'but a covered way,'"

I continued —

"That more and more a Providence
Of Love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense
Sweet with eternal good;

That death seems but a covered way,
Which opens into light,
Wherein no blinded child can stray
Beyond the Father's sight;

That care and trial seem at last,
Through Memory's sunset air,
Like mountain-ranges overpast
In purple distance fair;

That all the jarring notes of life
Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west-winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day."

"Ah," said mother, when my voice finally ceased, it had very nearly failed me towards the end, "that is just how I am. I sit by the open window, I look out and beyond, I see no trouble anywhere. The peace is wonderful, wonderful. It is all my Father's doing, my heavenly Father's doing. I am so strangely happy that I cannot quite understand myself. Last night something strange happened, West. Your dear father, my beloved husband, came back to me."

"Mother!" I cried.

"Yes," she said very gently, "he did; you will understand some day, I cannot explain what happened. He came to my room. He looked at me with your eyes, my darling, only older and more grave; eyes with the weight of the knowledge of life in them, and the understanding of the Life beyond in them. He looked at me, and there was both joy and sorrow in his eyes, and the joy seemed greater than the sorrow. He even took my hand in his, and I fancied I heard him say something about our going away together, but I am not quite sure on that point. I only know that he was with me, and that now I feel no pain. Nothing can trouble me again. Even dying cannot trouble me. West, my child, what are you crying for?"

"Oh, I am not crying at all, mother, only, somehow, there is a pathos in your words, but I am not crying."

She took my hand and patted it softly.

"You have no cause for tears, as far as I am concerned," she said. "I am the happiest woman in the world, I have had a happy life, such a husband, so dear a daughter, and now this wonderful, wonderful peace, this joy, and there is no death, dear West, for those who really love; there is no real parting for those who love."

From where we sat we could see the trees in the Square garden. They had put on their spring green, and most lovely was the mantle they wore. The dust of London had not yet had time to spoil them. The freshness of their appearance on that May morning was as vivid, as perfect, as though those trees lived themselves in the heart of the country; they seemed to be a little bit of God in the middle of that town Square. I kept watching them, and glancing from time to time at mother, but all through there was in my mind another thought, the thought of Mr. Fanning and what he wanted me to do. After all, if the end of life was so full of bliss, what mattered any cross on the journey. I felt ready for sacrifice. I rose very slowly, and softly left the drawing-room.

By a sort of common consent, the boarders had all gone out on this exquisite early summer's afternoon, and mother and I had the room to ourselves. Even Mrs. Fanning had gone out. I crossed the landing, and went into mother's bedroom. Nurse Marion was there. I shut the door behind me.

"How long will mother live?" I said abruptly. I was in the humour not to walk round anything that day; I wanted to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Nurse Marion looked at me in astonishment.

"You don't look well yourself, Miss Wickham," she answered.

"Never mind about me," I replied, "answer my question. If nothing harms her, if she gets no shock, how long will my mother live?"

"She may live for months and months," replied the nurse.

"And if she gets a shock, a sudden shock?"

"Ah!" the woman held up her hands ominously, "we must keep her from any thing of that sort, even a very little agitation would be bad for her; but I never saw a calmer, sweeter lady. She does not know she is dying, but why should she be troubled, she is close to God Himself, she lives in a sort of Paradise."

"Thank you," I answered. The tears were pressing hard on my eyes, but I would not let them fall.

"She thinks all the world of you, Miss Wickham," continued the nurse. "If she has an anxiety, it is about you; but even for you I do not think she feels real fear now. You will forgive me for speaking so frankly, but I can tell, miss, for I have seen much sorrow myself, that you are perplexed and puzzled and miserable just now, but I assure you you need not be sorry on your mother's account. She lives in the Land of Beulah. Have you ever read the 'Pilgrim's Progress'? You know, of course, to what I allude?"

"I know to what you allude," I answered; "the Land of Beulah is a beautiful country, but I am too young to understand about it."

"We are none of us too young to understand about that," replied the nurse. "I have been with many people suffering as your mother suffers, but I never before came across any one quite so gentle, so resigned, so happy, so peaceful, —it is the peace of God."

"We must keep her as long as we can," I said; "she is the most precious thing in all the world; we must keep her as long as we ever can. She must not have a shock nor a care."

"Of course not," answered the nurse.