'I am
dying! Let us remember that our time to be together here grows shorter
and shorter, and let us pass it as happily as we can!'
He raised his head, and looked up at her, vacant and wistful, forlorn
already, as if the death-parting was over.
'I have tried to live humbly and gratefully,' she sighed faintly. 'I
have longed to do more good on the earth than I have done! Yet you will
forgive me now, father, as you have always forgiven me! You have been
patient with me all my life; more patient than I have ever deserved!
But I had no mother to teach me to love you as I ought, to teach me what
I know now, when my death is near, and time and opportunity are mine no
longer!'
'Hush! hush!' whispered the old man affrightedly; 'you will live! God
is good, and knows that we have suffered enough. The curse of the last
separation is not pronounced against us! Live, live!'
'Father,' said the girl tenderly, 'we have that within us which not
death itself can separate. In another world I shall still think of you
when you think of me! I shall see you even when I am no more here, when
you long to see me! When you got out alone, and sit under the trees on
the garden bank where I used to sit; when you look forth on the far
plains and mountains that I used to look on; when you read at night in
the Bible that we have read in together, and remember Antonina as you
lie down sorrowful to rest; then I shall see you! then you will feel
that I am looking on you! You will be calm and consoled, even by the
side of my grave; for you will think, not of the body that is beneath,
but of the spirit that is waiting for you, as I have often waited for
you here when you were away, and I knew that the approach of the evening
would bring you home again!'
'Hush! you will live!--you will live!' repeated Numerian in the same
low, vacant tones.
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