"Don’t, Jessie," he whispered gently. "Let us make it easier for her if we can—and let us think of all it means to her—all it’ll bring back again. Come," the last word spoken with subdued passion, courage and anguish blending. They went in together, slowly, each seeming to wait for the other to lead the way. Their look, their movements, their manner of walk, the very way they leaned forward to peer with eager, awe-inspired eyes upon their mother’s face—all spoke of childhood; everything reverted in this great hour to the sweet simplicity of that period of life that had bound them to their mother in sacred helplessness. The primal passion flowed anew. And the two who crossed the floor together, tip-toeing towards the bed whereon their only earthly treasure lay, were now no more a laurel-laden man and a maiden woman-grown, waging the stern warfare life had thrust upon them; but they were simply boy and girl again, hand linked in hand as in the far departed days when two stained and tiny palms had so often lain one within the other—boy and girl, their hearts wrung with that strange grief that would be powerless against us all, could we but remain grown-up men and women. For the kingdom of sorrow resembles the kingdom of heaven, in this, at least, that we enter farthest in when we become like little children; and an all-wise Father has saved many a man from incurable maturity by the rejuvenating touch of sorrow, by the youth-renewing ministry of tears.
"Look, oh, Harvey, look," Jessie suddenly whispered in strange, excited tones. Subdued though her voice was, a kind of storm swept through it. Harvey started, looked afresh—and saw; and instinctively, almost convulsively, he turned and clutched Jessie tightly by the arm. She too was clinging to him in a very spasm of trembling.
"She sees us," came Jessie’s awesome tidings, her face half-hidden on her brother’s shoulder.
"She sees us," he echoed absently, his face turning again towards the bed, his eyes resuming the wondrous quest.
He gazed, unspeaking, as one might gaze who sees within the veil. All else was forgotten, even great Death—so jealous of all rivals—whose presence had filled the room a moment or two agone. And the silent years beyond—ah me! the aching silence after a mother’s voice is hushed—were unthought of now. And the grim and boding shade of orphanhood, deepening from twilight into dark, was unavailing against the new-born light that flooded all his soul with joy.