Christian life -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction
I flew up to my room and threw myself on my knees, sorrowful,
self-condemned. I had thrown away my last opportunity of speaking a
word to her in season, though I had seen how much she needed one, and
now she was going to die! Oh, I hope God will forgive me, and hear
the prayers I have offered her!
EVENING.-Ernest says he had a most distressing scene at Amelia's this
morning. She insisted on knowing what he thought of her, and then
burst out bitter complaints and lamentations, charging it to husband
that she had this disease, declaring that she could not, and would
not die, and insisting that he must prevent it. Her uncle urged for a
consultation of physicians, to which Ernest consented, of course,
though he says no mortal power can save her now. I asked him how her
husband appeared, to which he made the evasive answer that he
appeared just as one would expect him to do.
DECEMBER.-Amelia was so determined to see me that Ernest thought it
best for me to go. I found her looking very feeble.
"Oh, Katy," she began at once, "do make the doctor say that I shall
get well!"
"I wish he could say so with truth," I answered. "Dear Amelia, try
to think how happy God's own children are when they are with Him."
"I can't think," she replied. "I do not want to think. I want to
forget all about it. If it were not for this terrible cough I could
forget it, for I am really a great deal better than I was a month
ago."
I did not know what to say or what to do.
"May I read a hymn or a few verses from the Bible?" I asked, at last.
"Just as you like," she said, indifferently.
I read a verse now and then, but she looked tired, and I prepared to
go.
"Don't go," she cried. "I do not dare to be alone. Oh, what a
terrible, terrible thing it is to die! To leave this bright,
beautiful world, and be nailed in a coffin and buried up in a cold,
dark grave."
"Nay," I said, "to leave this poor sick body there, and to fly to a
world ten thousand times brighter, more beautiful than this."
"I had just got to feeling nearly well," she said, "and I had
everything I wanted, and Charley was quite good to me, and I kept my
little girls looking like fairies, just from fairy-land. Everybody
said they wore the most picturesque costumes when they were dressed
according to my taste. And I have got to go and leave them, and
Charley will be marrying somebody else, and saying to her all the
nice things he has said to me."
"I really must go now," I said. "You are wearing yourself all out."
"I declare you are crying," she exclaimed. "You do pity me after
all."
"Indeed I do," I said, and came away, heartsick.
Ernest says there is nothing I can do for her now but to pray for
her, since she does not really believe herself in danger, and has a
vague feeling that if she can once convince him how much she wants to
live, he will use some vigorous measures to restore her. Martha is to
watch with her to-night. Ernest will not let me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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