Christian fiction; Future life -- Fiction; Spiritualism -- Fiction
The heart knoweth its own bitterness; that grew distinct to me, as I
sat, shut out by her silence. Yet there was nothing bitter about her
face.
“Faith was six months old when he went,” she said presently. “We had
never named her: Baby was name enough at first for such a wee thing;
then she was the only one, and had come so late, that it seemed to mean
more to us than to most to have a baby all to ourselves, and we liked
the sound of the word. When it became quite certain that John must go,
we used to talk it over, and he said that he would like to name her, but
what, he did not tell me.
“At last, one night, after he had lain for a while thinking with closed
eyes, he bade me bring the child to him. The sun was setting, I
remember, and the moon was rising. He had had a hard day; the life was
all scorched out of the air. I moved the bed up by the window, that he
might have the breath of the rising wind. Baby was wide awake, cooing
softly to herself in the cradle, her bits of damp curls clinging to her
head, and her pink feet in her hands. I took her up and brought her just
as she was, and knelt down by the bed. The street was still. We could
hear the frogs chanting a mile away. He lifted her little hands upon his
own, and said--no matter about the words--but he told me that as he left
the child, so he left the name, in my sacred charge,--that he had chosen
it for me,--that, when he was out of sight, it might help me to have it
often on my lips.
“So there in the sunset and the moonrise, we two alone together, he
baptized her, and we gave our little girl to God.”
When she had said this, she rose and went over to the window, and stood
with her face from me. By and by, “It was the fourteenth,” she said, as
if musing to herself,--“the fourteenth of June.”
I remember now that Uncle Forceythe died on the fourteenth of June. It
may have been that the words of that baptismal blessing were the last
that they heard, either child or mother.
May 10.
It has been a pleasant day; the air shines like transparent gold; the
wind sweeps like somebody’s strong arms over the flowers, and gathers up
a crowd of perfumes that wander up and down about one. The church bells
have rung out like silver all day. Those bells--especially the Second
Advent at the further end of the village--are positively ghastly when it
rains.
Aunt Winifred was dressed bright and early for church. I, in morning
dress and slippers, sighed and demurred.
“Auntie, _do_ you expect to hear anything new?”
“Judging from your diagnosis of Dr. Bland,--no.”
“To be edified, refreshed, strengthened, or instructed?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Bored, then?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you expect?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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