Part 29 (1/2)
”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.
JAN. 18, 1843.-Our wedding-day has pa.s.sed un.o.bserved. Amelia's suffering condition absorbs us all. Martha spends much time with her, and prepares almost all the food she eats.
JAN. 20.-I have seen poor Amelia once more, and perhaps for the last time. She has failed rapidly of late, and Ernest says may drop away at almost any time.
When I went in she took me by the hand, and with great difficulty, and at intervals said something like this:
”I have made up my mind to it, and I know it must come. I want to see Dr. Cabot. Do you think he would be willing to visit me after my neglecting him so?”
”I am sure he would,” I cried.
”I want to ask him if he thinks I was a Christian at that time-you know when. If I was, then I need not be so afraid to die.”
”But, dear Amelia, what he thinks is very little to the purpose. The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to G.o.d, but whether you are His now. But I ought not to talk to you. Dr. Cabot will know just what to say.”
”No, but I want to know what you thought about it.”
I felt distressed, as I looked at her wasted dying figure, to be called on to help decide such a question. But I knew what I ought to say, and said it:
”Don't look back to the past; it is useless. Give yourself to Christ now.”
She shook her head.
”I don't know how,” she said. ”Oh, Katy, pray to G.o.d to let me live long enough to get ready to die. I have led a worldly life. I shudder at the bare thought of dying; I must have time.”
”Don't wait for time,” I said, with tears, ”get ready now, this minute. A thousand years would not make you more fit to die.”
So I came away, weary and heavy- laden, and on the way home stopped to tell Dr. Cabot all about it, and by this time he is with her.
”MARCH 1.-Poor Amelia's short race on earth is over. Dr. Cabot saw her every few days and says he hopes she did depart in Christian faith, though without Christian joy. I have not seen her since that last interview. That excited me so that Ernest would not let me go again.
Martha has been there nearly the whole time for three or four weeks, and I really think it has done her good. She seems less absorbed in mere outside things, and more lenient toward me and my failings.
I do not know what is to become of those mother little girls. I wish I could take them into my own home, but, of course, that is not even to be thought at this juncture. Ernest says their father seemed nearly distracted when Amelia died, and that his uncle is going to send him off to Europe immediately.
I have been talking with Ernest about Amelia.
”What do you think,” I asked, ”about her last days on earth? Was there really any preparation for death?