"I wish to write and tell him so myself, or, rather, if you will write for me, I should like to tell you what to say; and I feel that no time is to be lost, for I am failing fast, and may not long have strength enough to do it. It will devolve upon you, my child, to let him know when all is over; but you have had too many sad duties already, and it will spare you somewhat to have me prepare him to hear bad news. Will you commence a letter to-day?"
"Certainly, auntie, if you think it best."
"I do, Gerty. What you wrote by the last mail was my father's sickness and death; and there was nothing mentioned likely to alarm him on my account, was there?"
"Then it is time he should be forewarned, poor boy! I do not need Dr. Jeremy to tell me that I am dying."
"Did he tell you so?" asked Gertrude, as she went to her desk, and began to arrange her writing materials.
"No, Gerty! he was too prudent for that; but I told _him_ and he did not contradict me. You have known it some time, have you not?" inquired she, gazing earnestly in the face of Gertrude.
"Some weeks," replied Gertrude, as she spoke imprinting a kiss upon the pale brow of the sufferer.
"Why should I, dear auntie?" said Gertrude. "I knew the Lord could never call you at a time when your lamp would not be trimmed and burning."
"Whose, then, is bright," said Gertrude, "if yours be dim! Have you not, for years past, been a living lesson of piety? Unless it be Emily, auntie, I know of no one who seems so fit for heaven."
"Oh, no, Gerty! I am a sinful creature, full of weakness; much as I long to meet my Saviour, my earthly heart pines with the vain desire for one more sight of my boy, and all my dreams of heaven are mingled with the aching regret that the one blessing I most craved on earth has been denied me."
"Oh, auntie!" exclaimed Gertrude, "we are all human! Until the mortal puts on immortality, how can you cease to think of Willie, and long for his presence in this trying hour! It cannot be a sin--that which is so natural!"
"I do not know, Gerty; perhaps it is not; and, if it be, I trust before I go hence, I shall be blessed with a spirit of perfect submission, to atone for the occasional murmuring of a mother's heart? Read to me, my dear, some holy words of comfort; you always seem to open the good book at the passage I most need. It is sinful, indeed, to me, Gertrude, to indulge the least repining, blessed as I am in the love and care of one who is dear to me as a daughter!"
