Chapter III

Mary Grant went out of the house no more. In another week her waiting spirit bade farewell to earth, and winged its way to its native skies. Calmly and trustingly, while a heavenly smile played upon her irradiated features, she breathed her last in the arms of Mabel.

She was gone! Her wasted form, from which the undying soul had just taken its flight, lay in rigid silence before her. She was beautiful in death—so beautiful that Mabel could hardly believe she was dead; that those lips, parted in a placid smile, could no more speak gentle counsel to her; that those eyes, now motionless and sealed, could no more reflect the love of that affectionate heart upon her.

But a moment before, she had bidden her farewell. Could she be dead? Was it indeed true that those smiling lips were forever sealed; that another note of sisterly love could not proceed from them?

Kind friends were waiting to prepare the body for the sepulchre, and a gentle hand led her away from the inanimate form. Then, then she realized that her sister was indeed dead, and a torrent of woe swept wildly into her heart.

Flying to her chamber, she gave free vent to her grief.

“She is gone! She is gone!” sobbed she, as she buried her face beneath her hands, and trembled in the agony of her emotion.

Mary died as the sun was sinking behind the western hills. Her pure spirit had fled with the day; but the change bore her to an endless day, where there is no night and the sun never sets.

Mabel passed a sleepless night. Her pillow was wet with her tears. She rose in the morning, and hastened to gaze again upon the form of Mary. She was arrayed for the grave, and as Mabel bent over her, and printed a kiss upon the pallid, cold lips, the memories of the past rushed vividly into her heart. Her eyes rained tears upon the marble beauty of the corpse.

And there she stood for an hour, communing with the days which were now no more; which could never be again, because the heart that made them glad was now still in death.

The formality of the morning meal was disposed of,—it was nothing more than a form to the weeping household,—and Mabel returned to the side of her departed sister. She kissed the cold lips again, and gave herself up to the flood of irresistible grief which faithful memory forced upon her.

“Excuse me, Miss Grant,” said one of the neighbors, who had come in to assist the family, “but Miss Barnes, the dressmaker, is waiting to fit your dress.”

Her dress! There was something heartless, cruelly repulsive in the word. Her dress at such a time as that! Must she leave the bier of her dead sister to converse upon the details of a garment? Must her mind abandon the thought of the dead to dwell upon the fashion of a dress?

Without a word she went to the sitting room. It was a busy scene for the house of mourning, and she learned that the mantuamaker had been there all night, for the weather was warm, and the funeral must take place on the following day.

The conversation of the apartment sounded loathsome to her. It was not of her dead sister, it was of the latest fashions, of the propriety of this and that; the fitness of one article and the unfitness of another.

They asked her how she would have her dress cut; but her thoughts were with Mary, and she answered not. As soon as she could be spared, she left the dressmakers, and returned to the chamber of the dead.

Again she wandered back with Mary to the scenes of their happy childhood. Again the tears flowed freely down her cheeks, and the spirit of the loved one seemed to speak to her from the heaven to which she had ascended.

“The milliner has come, and wants to try on your bonnet,” said the servant girl.

Mabel attended the summons and returned. Her grief was too deep to permit her to participate in the occupations of the sitting room, though her mother was compelled to be there, and had been there all night.

“Please ma’am, the shopkeeper has come over with some gloves, and they want you to pick out a pair,” said the girl again.

She had scarcely disposed of this matter before another demanded her attention; and thus it was all day long. The house was full of bustle and confusion. The tailor, the hatter, the hosier, and a score of female artisans were constantly coming and going.

The solitude which her weeping heart craved was denied her. On the morrow that loved form was to be borne away and placed in the ground. They could never behold it again; but from the hour that Mary had breathed her last, to the arrival of the funeral guests, she heard more of business, of the repulsive details of dress and fashion, than of those more appropriate words which solace the mourner in the hour of trial.

The mourning garments were completed; but when Mabel was arrayed in them, they carried no comfort to the heart. She could not even feel that the wearing of them was a token of respect to her dead sister; for they had robbed her of the blessed privilege of weeping over her bier.

More than once she recalled the uncharitable judgment she had passed upon the Lawsons; but they had been privileged to mourn without interruption over their dead. The course they had chosen was reasonable; and she could not but feel that if the heart alone were consulted, it would not weep in nodding plumes and sable weeds.

Around the grave of Mary the devoted sister planted the flowers she had loved so well, and every evening, as the sun sank away, she placed a fresh bouquet upon the green sod above her.

And close by, the hand of affection strewed flowers upon the grave of Ellen Lawson; and all summer long, and when the chill winds of autumn swept the cemetery, these floral offerings told the passer by that the dead were remembered every day.

Bring flowers! Scatter them upon the graves of the dead; for they are a far more grateful tribute to the memory of the departed, than all the trappings of fashionable woe!