Page 2 of 5
More Books
More by this Author
|
Throughout the watches of the night her sister sat and held the dead
man's hand; she saw her more than once smooth his grey hair almost
as a mother might have touched a sick sleeping child's; again she
kissed his forehead, speaking to him gently, as if to tell him he
need not fear, for she was close at hand; just once she knelt, and
Anne wondered if she prayed, and in what manner, knowing that prayer
was not her habit.
'Twas just before dawn she knelt so, and when she rose and stood
beside him, looking down again, she drew from the folds of her robe
a little package.
"Anne," she said, as she untied the ribband that bound it, "when
first I was his wife I found him one day at his desk looking at
these things as they lay upon his hand. He thought at first it
would offend me to find him so; but I told him that I was gentler
than he thought--though not so gentle as the poor innocent girl who
died in giving him his child. 'Twas her picture he was gazing at,
and a little ring and two locks of hair--one a brown ringlet from
her head, and one--such a tiny wisp of down--from the head of her
infant. I told him to keep them always and look at them often,
remembering how innocent she had been, and that she had died for
him. There were tears on my hand when he kissed it in thanking me.
He kept the little package in his desk, and I have brought it to
him."
|