"And then, my pet, to let him go where his heart has been nearly twenty years. Would you be so selfish as to rob your mother of him? And to go so happy. I am sure he has. Come with me and see."
"Oh no, oh no. I cannot." And her lovely young form trembled, at the thought of visiting death.
"Yes, you can, if you only try, and I am sure that he would wish it. That you and I should kneel hand in hand and bless him, as others shall kneel some day by us. What, Lily afraid of her father! Then I have no fear of my Uncle."
God knows that I spoke so, not from harshness, only in the hope to do her good.
"If you really think he would wish it, dear--"
"Yes. It is a duty I owe him. He would be disappointed in me, if I failed."
"Oh, how he longed to see you once more, dear Clara, But he felt that you were safe, and he said you would come to see him, though he could not see you. He talked of you quite to the last; you and darling Conny."
"No! Oh I am so glad!" and a bright flash of joy shone forth from the eyes that were red with weeping. Something cold pushed quietly in between us, and then gave a sniff and a sigh. It was darling Judy's nose. He had learned in the lower regions, where he always dwelled in my absence, that Miss Clara was come home; and knowing my name as well as his own, he had set off at once in quest of me. After offering me his best love and respects, with the tip of his tongue, as he always did, he looked from one to the other of us, with his eyebrows raised in surprise, and the deepest sorrow and sympathy in his beautiful soft-brown pupils. I declare it made us cry more than ever.
"Oh, Clara," sobbed Lily at length, "he did howl so last night. Do you think he could have known it?"
His eyes dropped, as she was telling me. They always did, when he thought he had been a bad dog.
"Now go down, Judy; good little Judy, go to Mrs. Fletcher. A great friend of mine is with her."
Away he trotted obediently, and his tail recovered its flourish before he had got to the corner.
"Now, darling, let us go there," said the poor child, trembling again. "I would go anywhere with you."
Hand in hand we walked into my Uncle's chamber. Young as I was, and still thoughtless in many ways, twice before now had I gazed on the solemn face of death; but never, not even in my mother's holy countenance, saw I such perfect peace and bliss as dwelt in and seemed to smile from my dearest Uncle's lineaments. The life, in youth puffed here and there by every captious breeze of pride, in its prime becalmed awhile on the halycon deep of love, then tempest-tossed through the lonely dark, and shattered of late by blows from God, that life whose flaw of misanthropy and waste of high abilities had been redeemed, ennobled even, by a pure and perfect love--now it had bidden farewell to all below the clouds, calmly, happily, best of all--in faith.