" "Ailie, ma woman!" "Ma ain bonnie
wee dawtie!"
The end was drawing on: the golden bowl was breaking; the silver cord
was fast being loosed--that _animula blandula, vagula, hospes,
comesque_, was about to flee. The body and the soul--companions for
sixty years--were being sundered, and taking leave. She was walking
alone, through the valley of that shadow, into which one day we must
all enter--and yet she was not alone, for we know whose rod and staff
were comforting her.
One night she had fallen quiet, and as we hoped, asleep; her eyes were
shut. We put down the gas and sat watching her. Suddenly she sat up in
bed, and taking a bed-gown which was lying on it rolled up, she held
it eagerly to her breast--to the right side. We could see her eyes
bright with a surprising tenderness and joy, bending over this bundle
of clothes. She held it as a woman holds her sucking child; opening
out her night-gown impatiently, and holding it close, and brooding
over it, and murmuring foolish little words, as over one whom his
mother comforteth, and who sucks and is satisfied. It was pitiful and
strange to see her wasted dying look, keen and yet vague--her immense
love.
"Preserve me!" groaned James, giving way. And then she rocked back and
forward, as if to make it sleep, hushing it, and wasting on it her
infinite fondness. "Wae's me, doctor; I declare she's thinkin' it's
that bairn." "What bairn?" "The only bairn we ever had; our wee Mysie,
and she's in the Kingdom, forty years and mair.
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