In flurry and terror I returned to the drawing-room, and shut the door; then, with the instinct that prevails, I went to mamma's room and sat down beside her.
I suppose every one has felt as I have felt. How magically the society of the patient, if not actually suffering, reassures us! The mere contiguity, the voice, the interest she takes in the common topics of our daily life, the cheerful and easy tone, even the little peevishness about the details of the sick-room, soon throw death again into perspective, and the instinct of life prevails against all facts and logic.
The form of heart-complaint from which my mother suffered had in it nothing revolting. I think I never remember her so pretty. The tint of her lips, and the colour of her cheeks, always lovely, were now more delicately brilliant than ever; and the lustre of her eyes, thus enhanced, was quite beautiful. The white tints a little paler, and her face and figure slightly thinner, but not unbecomingly, brought back a picture so girlish that I wondered while I looked; and when I went away the pretty face haunted me as the saddest and gentlest I had ever seen.
So many people have said that the approach of death induces a change of character, that I almost accept it for a general law of nature. I saw it, I know, in mamma. Not exactly an actual change, perhaps, but, rather, a subsidence of whatever was less lovely in her nature, and a proportionate predominance of all its sweetness and gentleness. There came also a serenity very different from the state of mind in which she had been from papa's death up to the time of my illness. I do not know whether she was conscious of her imminent danger. If she suspected it, she certainly did not speak of it to me or to Rebecca Torkill. But death is a subject on which some people, I believe, practise as many reserves as others do in love.
Next day mamma was much better, and sat in our drawing-room, and I read and talked to her, and amused her with my music. She sat in slippers and dressing-gown in an easy-chair, and we talked over a hundred plans which seemed to interest her. The effort to cheer mamma did me good, and I think we were both happier that day than we had been since ruin had so tragically overtaken us.