CHAPTER XIII.
My wasting lamp some fading glimmer left,
My dull deaf ears a little use to hear. . . ."
My little dead angel is lying alone on the wide white bed, with roses in his folded hands, and tapers burning on either side. You would never know that he had been ill at all to look round the room; it is all so neat, so simple, so fresh. No ugly medicine bottles or any of the paraphernalia of sickness is there; everything looks peaceful, untroubled, usual. Through the open windows the moon sends a flood of light that washes the floor, the bed, the waxen features of my darling, who lies there so still and quiet—he who used to run about so indefatigably, whose feet were never tired, whose voice was never still save when he slept and he is not asleep now . . . yet that eyeless, voiceless, pulseless shape is my little lad. I am not by his side now; no tears would come to me as I looked down on the little dead face that had smiled on me so lovingly four hours ago, on the lips that had syllabled "Good-bye, Lallie!" with the last hovering breath, on the hands that only slackened their hold on mine when death detached them . . . When I brushed out his beautiful golden curls, and felt them cling round my fingers like living sentient things, they woke no memory in me of those other times when I had brushed them, finding such trouble in keeping the restless head still . . . I was as unfeeling as silent, as placid as he. The nurse has gone away with the rest; she would have watched with me beside him all night, but she shall not—no one shall do anything for him but me. I am sitting in the school-room alone, and the sound of the church clock striking ten comes with sudden loudness through the silence.
Ten! and at five o'clock Wattie was living; I had him in my
