"Yes,my child.There is no darkness at all."She paused a minute,and said earnestly,"I want to go--I very much want to go.How long do you think it will be before the angels come for me?""Many,many years,my precious one,"said I,shuddering;for truly she looked so like them,that I began to fear they were close at hand.
But a few minutes afterwards she was playing with her brothers and talking to her pet doves,so sweet and humanlike,that the fear passed away.
We sent the children early to bed that night,and sat long by the fire,consulting how best to remove infection,and almost satisfied that in these two days it could not have taken any great hold on the house.John was firm in his belief in Dr.Jenner and vaccination.
We went to bed greatly comforted,and the household sank into quiet slumbers,even though under its roof slept,in deeper sleep,the little dead child.
That small closet,which was next to the nursery I occupied,safely shut out by it from the rest of the house,seemed very still now.Iwent to sleep thinking of it,and dreamed of it afterwards.
In the middle of the night a slight noise woke me,and I almost fancied I was dreaming still;for there I saw a little white figure gliding past my bed's foot;so softly and soundlessly--it might have been the ghost of a child--and it went into the dead child's room.
For a moment,that superstitious instinct which I believe we all have,paralyzed me.Then I tried to listen.There was most certainly a sound in the next room--a faint cry,quickly smothered--a very human cry.All the stories I had ever heard of supposed death and premature burial rushed horribly into my mind.Conquering alike my superstitious dread or fear of entering the infected room,Ileaped out of bed,threw on some clothes,got a light,and went in.
There laid the little corpse,all safe and still--for ever.And like its own spirit watching in the night at the head of the forsaken clay,sat Muriel.
I snatched her up and ran with her out of the room,in an agony of fear.
She hid her face on my shoulder,trembling,"I have not done wrong,have I?I wanted to know what it was like--that which you said was left of little Tommy.I touched it--it was so cold.Oh!Uncle Phineas!THAT isn't poor little Tommy?""No,my blessed one--no,my dearest child!Don't think of it any more."And,hardly knowing what was best to be done,I called John,and told him where I had found his little daughter.He never spoke,but snatched her out of my arms into his own,took her in his room,and shut the door.
From that time our fears never slumbered.For one whole week we waited,watching the children hour by hour,noting each change in each little face;then Muriel sickened.
It was I who had to tell her father,when as he came home in the evening I met him by the stream.It seemed to him almost like the stroke of death.
"Oh,my God!not her!Any but her!"And by that I knew,what I had long guessed,that she was the dearest of all his children.
Edwin and Walter took the disease likewise,though lightly.No one was in absolute danger except Muriel.But for weeks we had what people call "sickness in the house;"that terrible overhanging shadow which mothers and fathers well know;under which one must live and move,never resting night nor day.This mother and father bore their portion,and bore it well.When she broke down,which was not often,he sustained her.If I were to tell of all he did--how,after being out all day,night after night he would sit up watching by and nursing each little fretful sufferer,patient as a woman,and pleasant as a child play-mate--perhaps those who talk loftily of "the dignity of man"would smile.I pardon them.
The hardest minute of the twenty-four hours was,I think,that when,coming home,he caught sight of me afar off waiting for him,as Ialways did,at the white gate;and many a time,as we walked down to the stream,I saw--what no one else saw but God.After such times Iused often to ponder over what great love His must be,who,as the clearest revelation of it,and of its nature,calls Himself "the Father."And He brought us safe through our time of anguish:He left us every one of our little ones.
One November Sunday,when all the fields were in a mist,and the rain came pouring softly and incessantly upon the patient earth which had been so torn and dried up by east winds,that she seemed glad enough to put aside the mockery of sunshine and melt in quiet tears,we once more gathered our flock together in thankfulness and joy.
Muriel came down-stairs triumphantly in her father's arms,and lay on the sofa smiling;the firelight dancing on her small white face--white and unscarred.The disease had been kind to the blind child;she was,I think,more sweet-looking than ever.Older,perhaps;the round prettiness of childhood gone--but her whole appearance wore that inexpressible expression,in which,for want of a suitable word,we all embody our vague notions of the unknown world,and call "angelic.""Does Muriel feel quite well--quite strong and well?"the father and mother both kept saying every now and then,as they looked at her.
She always answered,"Quite well."
In the afternoon,when the boys were playing in the kitchen,and John and I were standing at the open door,listening to the dropping of the rain in the garden,we heard,after its long silence,Muriel's "voice.""Father,listen!"whispered the mother,linking her arm through his as he stood at the door.Soft and slow came the notes of the old harpsichord--she was playing one of the abbey anthems.Then it melted away into melodies we knew not--sweet and strange.Her parents looked at one another--their hearts were full of thankfulness and joy.
"And Mary Baines's little lad is in the churchyard."