“.. Of whom may we seek for succor, but of Thee, O Lord, who for our sins are justly displeased? ..

“.. earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life...”

“I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write. From henceforth blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord; even so saith the Spirit, for they do rest from their labors.”

It was a burial in a village church-yard, and standing by an open grave there was one mourner only, a woman—Bertha Vaux. Alone, in sadness and silence, with few tears—for she was little used to weep—she stood and looked upon her sister’s funeral; stood and saw the coffin lowered, and heard the first handful of earth fall rattling on the coffin lid; then turned away, slowly, to seek her solitary house. The few spectators thought her cold and heartless; perhaps if they could have raised that black veil, they would have seen such sorrow in her face as might have moved the hearts of most of them.

The sun shone warmly over hill and vale that summer’s day, but Bertha Vaux shivered as she stepped within the shadow of her lonely house. It was so cold there; so cold and damp and dark, as if the shadow of that death that had entered it was still lingering around. The stunted evergreens, on which, since they first grew, no sunlight had ever fallen, no single ray of golden light to brighten their dark, sad leaves for years, looked gloomier, darker, sadder, than they had ever looked before; the very house, with its closed shutters—all closed, except one in the room where the dead had lain—seemed mourning for the stern mistress it had lost. A lonely woman now, lonely and sad, was Bertha Vaux.

She sat in the summer evening in her silent, cheerless room. It was so very still, not even a breath of wind to stir the trees; no voice of living thing to break upon her solitude; no sound even of a single footstep on the dusty road; but in the solitude that was around her, countless thoughts seemed springing into life; things long forgotten; feelings long smothered; hopes once bright—bright as the opening of her life had been, that had faded and been buried long ago.

She thought of the time when she and her sister, fifteen years ago, had come first to the lonely house where now she was; of a few years later—two or three—when another younger sister had joined them there; and it seemed to Bertha, looking back, as if the house had sometimes then been filled with sunlight. The dark room in which she sat had once been lightened up—was it with the light from Gabrielle’s bright eyes? In these long, sad fifteen years, that little time stood out so clearly, so hopefully; it brought the tears to Bertha’s eyes, thinking of it in her solitude. And how had it ended? For ten years nearly, now—for ten long years—the name of Gabrielle had never been spoken in that house. The light was gone—extinguished in a moment, suddenly; a darkness deeper than before had ever since fallen on the lonely house.

The thought of the years that had passed since then—of their eventlessness and weary sorrow; and then the thought of the last scene of all—that scene which still was like a living presence to her—her sister’s death.

Joanna Vaux had been cold, stern, and unforgiving to the last; meeting death, unmoved; repenting of no hard thing that she had done throughout her sad, stern life; entering the valley of the shadow of death fearlessly. But that cold death-bed struck upon the heart of the solitary woman who watched beside it, and wakened thoughts and doubts there, which would not rest. She wept now as she thought of it, sadly and quietly, and some murmured words burst from her lips, which sounded like a prayer—not for herself only.

Then from her sister’s death-bed she went far, far back—to her own childhood—and a scene rose up before her; one that she had closed her eyes on many a time before, thinking vainly that so she could crush it from her heart, but now she did not try to force it back. The dark room where she sat, the gloomy, sunless house, seemed fading from her sight; the long, long years, with their weary train of shame and suffering—all were forgotten. She was in her old, lost home again—the home where she was born; she saw a sunny lawn, embowered with trees, each tree familiar to her and remembered well, and she herself, a happy child, was standing there; and by her side—with soft arms twining round her, with tender voice, and gentle, loving eyes, and bright hair glittering in the sunlight—there was one!

Oh, Bertha! hide thy face and weep. She was so lovely and so loving, so good and true, so patient and so tender, then. “Oh! how could’st thou forget it all, and steel thy heart against her, and vow the cruel vow never to forgive her sin? Thy mother—thy own mother, Bertha! think of it.”

A shadow fell across the window beside which she sat, and through her blinding tears Bertha looked up, and saw a woman standing there, holding by the hand a little child. Her face was very pale and worn, with sunken eyes and cheeks; her dress was mean and poor. She looked haggard and weary, and weak and ill; but Bertha knew that it was Gabrielle come back. She could not speak, for such a sudden rush of joy came to her softened heart that all words seemed swallowed up in it; such deep thankfulness for the forgiveness that seemed given her, that her first thought was not a welcome, but a prayer.

Gabrielle stood without, looking at her with her sad eyes.

“We are alone,” she said, “and very poor; will you take us in?”

Sobbing with pity and with joy, Bertha rose from her seat and hurried to the door. Trembling, she drew the wanderers in; then falling on her sister’s neck, her whole heart melted, and she cried, with gushing tears,

“Gabrielle, dear sister Gabrielle, I, too, am all alone!”

The tale that Gabrielle had to tell was full enough of sadness. They had lived together, she and her mother, for about a year, very peacefully, almost happily; and then the mother died, and Gabrielle soon after married one who had little to give her but his love. And after that the years passed on with many cares and griefs—for they were very poor, and he not strong—but with a great love ever between them, which softened the pain of all they had to bear. At last, after being long ill, he died, and poor Gabrielle and her child were left to struggle on alone.

“I think I should have died,” she said, as weeping, she told her story to her sister, “if it had not been for my boy; and I could so well have borne to die; but, Bertha, I could not leave him to starve! It pierced my heart with a pang so bitter that I cannot speak of it, to see his little face grow daily paler; his little feeble form become daily feebler and thinner; to watch the sad, unchildlike look fixing itself hourly deeper in his sweet eyes—so mournful, so uncomplaining, so full of misery. The sight killed me day by day; and then at last, in my despair, I said to myself that I would come again to you. I thought, sister—I hoped—that you would take my darling home, and then I could have gone away and died. But God bless you!—God bless you for the greater thing that you have done, my kind sister Bertha. Yes—kiss me, sister dear: it is so sweet. I never thought to feel a sister’s kiss again.”

Then kneeling down by Gabrielle’s side, with a low voice Bertha said:

“I have thought of many things to-day. Before you came, Gabrielle, my heart was very full; for in the still evening, as I sat alone, the memories of many years came back to me as they have not done for very long. I thought of my two sisters: how the one had ever been so good and loving and true-hearted; the other—though she was just, or believed herself to be so—so hard, and stern, and harsh—as, God forgive me, Gabrielle, I too have been. I thought of this, and understood it clearly, as I had never done before: and then my thoughts went back, and rested on my mother—on our old home—on all the things that I had loved so well, long ago, and that for years had been crushed down in my heart and smothered there. Oh, Gabrielle, such things rushed back upon me; such thoughts of her whom we have scorned so many years; such dreams of happy by-gone days; such passionate regrets; such hope, awakening from its long, long sleep—no, sister, let me weep—do not wipe the tears away: let me tell you of my penitence and grief—it does me good; my heart is so full—so full that I must speak now, or it would burst!”

“Then you shall speak to me, and tell me all, dear sister. Ah! we have both suffered—we will weep together. Lie down beside me; see, there is room here for both. Yes; lay your head upon me; rest it on my shoulder. Give me your hand now—ah! how thin it is—almost as thin as mine. Poor sister Bertha; poor, kind sister!”

So gently Gabrielle soothed her, forgetting her own grief and weariness in Bertha’s more bitter suffering and remorse. It was very beautiful to see how tenderly and patiently she did it, and how her gentle words calmed down the other’s passionate sorrow. So different from one another their grief was. Gabrielle’s was a slow, weary pain, which, day by day, had gradually withered her, eating its way into her heart; then resting there, fixing itself there for ever. Bertha’s was like the quick, sudden piercing of a knife—a violent sorrow, that did its work in hours instead of years, convulsing body and soul for a little while, purifying them as with a sharp fire, then passing away and leaving no aching pain behind, but a new cleansed spirit.

In the long summer twilight—the beautiful summer twilight that never sinks into perfect night—these two women lay side by side together; she that was oldest in suffering still comforting the other, until Bertha’s tears were dried, and exhausted with the grief that was so new to her, she lay silent in Gabrielle’s arms—both silent, looking into the summer night, and thinking of the days that were forever past. And sleeping at their feet lay Gabrielle’s child, not forgotten by her watchful love, though the night had deepened so that she could not see him where he lay.

——