Stubbard, sobbing like a child, was lifting
and clumsily chafing one numb hand; while his wife, who had sponged the
wound, was making the white curls wave with a fan she had shaped from a
long official paper found upon the floor.
Dolly was recovering from her swoon, and sat upon a stool by the
bookcase, faintly wondering what had happened, but afraid to ask or
think. The corner of the bookcase, and the burly form of Stubbard,
concealed the window from her, and the torpid oppression which ensues
upon a fit lay between her and her agony. Faith, as she passed, darted
one glance at her, not of pity, not of love, but of cold contempt and
satisfaction at her misery.
Then Faith, the quiet and gentle maid, the tranquil and the
self-controlled (whom every one had charged with want of heart, because
she had borne her own grief so well), stood with the body of her father
at her feet, and uttered an exceeding bitter cry. The others had seen
enough of grief, as every human being must, but nothing half so sad
as this. They feared to look at her face, and durst not open lips to
comfort her.
"Don't speak. Don't look at him. You have no right here. When he comes
to himself, he will want none but me. I have always done everything for
him since dear mother died; and I shall get him to sit up. He will be
so much better when he sits up. I can get him to do it, if you will
only go. Oh, father, father, it is your own Faith come to make you well,
dear, if you will only look at me!"
As she took his cold limp hand and kissed it, and wiped a red splash
from his soft white hair, the dying man felt, by nature's feeling, that
he was being touched by a child of his.
Pages:
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660