I got up and hung a shawl over the canary's cage to keep him quiet. He had been singing all day, till it seemed to me I could not bear it any longer. That morning the doctor had told me that my mother would never be any better. She was liable, he said, to die at any time. At the longest, it was only a question of days or weeks. And my mother was all I had in the world.  
My father had been dead a year. In his lifetime we had lived in a pleasant country home. He had been employed in the county bank, and we had lived most comfortably, and even with some pretensions to elegance. I had been sent to school, and learned a little French, a little music, and something of art. I had, too, a great deal of skill in fancy work, and had been used to find in that and[Pg 225] my painting my amusements. Indeed, we all had what are called elegant tastes,—tastes which suited a much larger income than ours, and we indulged them. This was unwise, perhaps. People said so, at any rate, when my father died suddenly, and left us with no property and no dependence save our home.
 
It was to escape alike their censure and their pity, as much as because I fancied I could find more openings for employment, that I persuaded mother to join me in selling our little place, and remove to New York. She was willing enough to do this. I think that it was a relief to her to go away from all the familiar sights and sounds which kept so constantly before her the memory of the dead husband who had made her life among them so blessed. She fancied, perhaps, that when she was among unfamiliar things the first bitterness of her grief would wear away. But with her, as it proved, change of place was only change of pain. She was not made of the stuff to which forgetfulness is possible.
 
Our home and furniture brought us a little over[Pg 226] three thousand dollars, and with this sum we went to New York. In spite of my mourning for my father I had the elasticity of youth, and I did not make this removal, enter into this wide, strange, new life, without my share of the high hopes and brilliant anticipations of youth.
 
We went first to a hotel, and then looked up a boarding-place in a quiet, unpretentious street, suited to our means. We expected to use two or three hundred dollars before we got well established; and then I hoped to earn enough to keep us, with the help of the interest of the three thousand we should still have remaining, without encroaching upon the principal. I might have succeeded, perhaps,—for I was not long in procuring fancy work from two fashionable trimming stores,—if, when we had been there a little while, my mother's health had not begun seriously to decline. I think she made an effort to live on, after all the joy of her life was dead, for my sake; but she failed, and by and by she grew weary and gave up the struggle.
 
Of course her illness brought upon us new [Pg 227]expenses. I would have for her the best medical advice, however she might protest against it as useless; and there were various little comforts and luxuries that I could not and would not deny myself the pleasure of procuring for her. So we were gradually going behindhand all the time. This had troubled me a little; but now that the doctor had spoken my mother's doom, the matter of dollars and cents faded into utter insignificance. There would be more than enough to take care of her to the last, and after that I could not bring myself to think. I would have shuddered at the thought of self-destruction, but I believe the prayer was in my mind, every moment in the day, that God would let me care for her till the end, and then lie down and die beside her. So I carried back the work I had from Richmond's and La Pierre's, and spent all my time with her,—my darling.
 
Often when I tried to talk with her, the thought how soon she would be past all hearing would rise up and choke me, and I would turn away to hide the sudden rush of tears. It was on Wednesday[Pg 228] the doctor had told me what I must expect; and up to Saturday night I had kept it from her, trying my poor best to wear a cheerful face. That night I sat beside her in the twilight. She was on the lounge, bolstered up with pillows, and I on a low hassock, which brought my face on a level with hers. We had been silent a long time, since the last ray of sunset touched our western windows, and now the dusk had fallen so that we could see each other no longer. At last out of the shadows came her voice, clear and sweet,—
 
"Beyond the sowing and the reaping,
Beyond the watching and the weeping,
Beyond the waking and the sleeping,
I shall be soon."
Then she put out her hand and touched my wet face.
 
"Do not grieve, my darling," she said,—oh, how tenderly,—"because I am going home. The only pang I feel is for you, and it will not be long before you come."
 
"It may be years," I said, bitterly. "I am young and strong. Oh, I wish I wasn't,—if God[Pg 229] would only take me too, and not make me stay in this great, empty world without you!"
 
"I think, darling, He will send you a comforter."
 
"Oh, I am not so bad that I do not want His Spirit. I do believe; I do try to follow the dear Lord; but I want a human comforter,—something to see and feel,—tender lips, gentle fingers. The flesh is so weak."
 
"And I meant a human comforter. I believe He will send you one in His own time and way,—when you learn, perhaps, to forget yourself in helping some one still more desolate."
 
"As if that could be. O, mother, when you are gone there won't be in the whole wide world such a lonesome, aching heart as mine."
 
"People always say that, dear; always think there is no sorrow like their sorrow, until God teaches them better, either by making their own burden heavier, or by showing them how to help some one else. God grant it may be this last with you, Bessie."
 
"But is there no hope, mother?" I said, with[Pg 230] a wild longing for a little of the comfort a doubt would give.
 
"I think none. Dr. West told you so Wednesday, did he not? and you have been trying to keep it from me,—as if I could not read it in your face, every time you looked at me."
 
All reserve broke down then. I was in her arms, sobbing and crying on her bosom; I that so soon would have no mother's bosom for my refuge any more for ever.
 
The doctor had said her life was a question of days or weeks. She lived four weeks after he told me that, and then one night she talked with me a long, long time. At last she said she was tired, and would go to sleep. Then she kissed me, as she always did, and turned her gentle face toward the wall. She awoke again in another world than ours. But by the calm blessedness of the smile on the dead face I knew that her soul had departed in peace. It was a smile that made her young and fair again, as the mother I remembered away back in my childhood.
 
Oh, what a desolate funeral that was! I had no[Pg 231] friends near enough to give them any claim to be sent for, and I wanted no one. I made all the arrangements myself, and the third day I buried my dead. I remember the minister, after the funeral rites were over, stopped a moment beside the grave to speak a few words of sympathy to me, sole mourner. But I was deaf with sorrow. I made no answer, and presently he turned away. I don't know how long I stood there. After a while my driver came up, touching his hat, respectfully, and asked,—
 
"Would ye plaise to start soon, miss?" and mechanically I went toward the carriage, and he put me in and shut the door. So I went back to the desolate room where she had di............