“No, child, you have always been good to me,” returned the old man; “and better than I desarve; but let us pray that this affliction may be sanctified to us all, and wean us from the perishing things of this airth—myself above all, who can’t have much longer to stay; and this dear child, that she may feel it as a goolden thread a drawing on her easy like to heaven.” He then knelt down, his son and daughter-in-law by his side, and offered up an humble and fervent prayer over Judith, who was lying before them.
Meanwhile the paroxysms of her grief appeared to abate by degrees, and during her grandfather’s prayer her lips moved as if accompanying him; her sobs became less frequent, and at length were heard no longer; her slow and regular breathing showing that she had fallen into a profound sleep. Her father brought a pillow and tenderly placed it beneath her head. She slept heavily for more than an hour, when, it being long after midnight, her parents, fearing she would take cold, removed her into their own bed—this room being their sleeping apartment in the winter season. As she moaned on being disturbed, her mother soothed and caressed her; and then placing herself by the side of her child, she folded her in her arms, and lulled her to sleep, as if again an infant, while her father placed himself in the easy-chair, and watched until sleep overpowered him.
The next morning, as the anxious parents were bending over their darling, she opened her eyes, and a beautiful smile spread itself over her features. “Oh! I have seen him to-night,” she said, “and he was among the blessed; he told me to live for your sake and his mother’s, and he would watch over me until we met in heaven.” When thoroughly awakened from her dream, she looked fondly on her father and mother, and clasping the hands of both, said, “Oh! how wicked and ungrateful I was to you last night! Can you forgive me? and henceforth I will only live to please you, and will have no wish but yours.”
“You, dear child, you never did any thing but please us; you never had any other wish but ours,” both answered with streaming eyes.
Judith then arose and dressed herself; her trembling limbs and pale countenance sufficiently betraying the shock her frame had received. She went out of the room and busied herself even more than was her wont in domestic details, and throughout the day endeavored by redoubled attention and affection to her grandfather, to make amends to him for her impatience the night before.