None but the father, mother, and sister were at the bedside when the young life ebbed away. Poor tortured souls! May they be strong enough to bear the heavy trial. That night the father never shed a tear, nor the next day, nor the next. It would have been better had grief found a natural channel. He spoke but little, and mostly sat by the bed as if in deep thought, until they carried her away.
The white wreaths had come,--and the black hearse; and graceful lilies, their long stems bound together with white ribbons. Black crapes too, and sable hues, to harmonise with a world of sorrow and darkness.
Then the blinds went up, and the world went on as before. I looked out of the window; I recollect a boy's cap had got cast adrift on the branch of a tree just opposite the house of sadness; a little crowd had collected to do justice to the incident. "Would it get off, or gradually perish where it hung?" was the question of paramount interest to that particular little world.
But does the world really go on as before? Not quite. A fraction of our globe has been disturbed, a balance lost. The blow that struck down one brother or sister wounds many hearts, reverberates in circles small or large, and it will take time to restore that fraction's equilibrium. It is as when we break the peaceful surface of the water. First a thud, a gash; next a circle, small, but broken and restless; then a larger one and a larger, each and all gradually calming down to be at rest, with the smooth untroubled waters beyond.
When a link in the chain of existences, near and dear to us, is snapped asunder, we instinctively seek to close up the gap, to join hands and succour one another. So Frida's heart went out to her father as he sat brooding, with his eyes fixed on the desk with the little bust. It was not till much later that I knew what she had suffered. She wished to throw her arms round his neck and cry her little aching heart out, and love him with her dead sister's love and her own, and let him cry too, that love and sorrow could mingle. But he sat there, so forbidding, so strange, that her arms fell, and her tears flowed back to the aching heart. Then she went up to him and stood by his side. The word "father" quivered on her lips; she knew not why, but she dared not pronounce it. Her mother came in and stood waiting too, hoping he would turn round, but he did not move. "Dearest mine," she said, "speak to Frida."