"I am so glad.But these"--touching her eyes anxiously.
"No--my darling.Not like you there,"was the low answer.
"I am VERY glad.Please,little Maud,don't cry--it's only sister touching you.How wide open your eyes feel!I wonder,"--with a thoughtful pause--"I wonder if you can see me.Little Maud,I should like you to see sister.""She does see,of course;how she stares!"cried Guy.And then Edwin began to argue to the contrary,protesting that as kittens and puppies could not see at first,he believed little babies did not:which produced a warm altercation among the children gathered round the bed,while Muriel lay back quietly on her pillow,with her little sister fondly hugged to her breast.
The father and mother looked on.It was such a picture--these five darlings,these children which God had given them--a group perfect and complete in itself,like a root of daisies,or a branch of ripening fruit,which not one could be added to,or taken from--No.I was sure,from the parents'smile,that,this once,Mercy had blinded their eyes,so that they saw nothing beyond the present moment.
The children were wildly happy.All the afternoon they kept up their innocent little games by Muriel's bed-side;she sometimes sharing,sometimes listening apart.Only once or twice came that wistful,absent look,as if she were listening partly to us,and partly to those we heard not;as if through the wide-open orbs the soul were straining at sights wonderful and new--sights unto which HER eyes were the clear-seeing,and ours the blank and blind.
It seems strange now,to remember that Sunday afternoon,and how merry we all were;how we drank tea in the queer bed-room at the top of the house;and how afterwards Muriel went to sleep in the twilight,with baby Maud in her arms.Mrs.Halifax sat beside the little bed,a sudden blazing up of the fire showing the intentness of her watch over these two,her eldest and youngest,fast asleep;their breathing so soft,one hardly knew which was frailest,the life slowly fading or the life but just begun.Their breaths seemed to mix and mingle,and the two faces,lying close together,to grow into a strange likeness each to each.At least,we all fancied so.
Meanwhile,John kept his boys as still as mice,in the broad window-seat,looking across the white snowy sheet,with black bushes peering out here and there,to the feathery beech-wood,over the tops of which the new moon was going down.Such a little young moon!and how peacefully--nay,smilingly--she set among the snows!
The children watched her till the very last minute,when Guy startled the deep quiet of the room by exclaiming--"There--she's gone.""Hush!"
"No,mother,I am awake,"said Muriel."Who is gone,Guy?""The moon--such a pretty little moon."
"Ah,Maud will see the moon some day."She dropped her cheek down again beside the baby sister,and was silent once more.
This is the only incident I remember of that peaceful,heavenly hour.
Maud broke upon its quietude by her waking and wailing;and Muriel very unwillingly let the little sister go.
"I wish she might stay with me--just this one night;and to-morrow is my birthday.Please,mother,may she stay?""We will both stay,my darling.I shall not leave you again.""I am so glad;"and once more she turned round,as if to go to sleep.
"Are you tired,my pet?"said John,looking intently at her.
"No,father."
"Shall I take your brothers down-stairs?"
"Not yet,dear father."
"What would you like,then?"
"Only to lie here,this Sunday evening,among you all."He asked her if she would like him to read aloud?as he generally did on Sunday evenings.
"Yes,please;and Guy will come and sit quiet on the bed beside me and listen.That will be pleasant.Guy was always very good to his sister--always.""I don't know that,"said Guy,in a conscience-stricken tone."But Imean to be when I grow a big man--that I do."No one answered.John opened the large Book--the Book he had taught all his children to long for and to love--and read out of it their favourite history of Joseph and his brethren.The mother sat by him at the fireside,rocking Maud softly on her knees.Edwin and Walter settled themselves on the hearth-rug,with great eyes intently fixed on their father.From behind him the candle-light fell softly down on the motionless figure in the bed,whose hand he held,and whose face he every now and then turned to look at--then,satisfied,continued to read.
In the reading his voice had a fatherly,flowing calm--as Jacob's might have had,when "the children were tender,"and he gathered them all round him under the palm-trees of Succoth--years before he cried unto the Lord that bitter cry--(which John hurried over as he read)--"IF I AM BEREAVED OF MY CHILDREN,I AM BEREAVED."For an hour,nearly,we all sat thus--with the wind coming up the valley,howling in the beech-wood,and shaking the casement as it passed outside.Within,the only sound was the father's voice.This ceased at last;he shut the Bible,and put it aside.The group--that last perfect household picture--was broken up.It melted away into things of the past,and became only a picture,for evermore.
"Now,boys--it is full time to say good-night.There,go and kiss your sister.""Which?"said Edwin,in his funny way."We've got two now;and Idon't know which is the biggest baby."
"I'll thrash you if you say that again,"cried Guy."Which,indeed?
Maud is but the baby.Muriel will be always 'sister.'""Sister"faintly laughed,as she answered his fond kiss--Guy was often thought to be her favourite brother.
"Now,off with you,boys;and go down-stairs quietly--mind,I say quietly."They obeyed--that is,as literally as boy-nature can obey such an admonition.But an hour after I heard Guy and Edwin arguing vociferously in the dark,on the respective merits and future treatment of their two sisters,Muriel and Maud.