[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

FOR heaven's sake, Lynde,” said
Howland, one evening, “let us have
our coffee and segars on the back
piazza. Human nature cannot stand
ten funerals to one cup of Mocha.”

The hearses crawled by the house
day and night, an interminable train.

“Coffee on the back porch, Christina.”

As Christina placed our bamboo chairs on the
verandah, I saw by her swollen eyelids that she
had been weeping.

“Christina?” said I, inquiringly.

“Little Agnes, sir — I'm afraid she is very
sick.”

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

Little Agnes! Christina's child, the only
flower that blossomed for one poor life — the little
pale bloom of love that sprung up in the crevice
of a broken heart.

I do not know Christina's history; but I
imagine it would not be impossible to guess. I
think that a page of it was written on the face of
the child.

Agnes was fairer than her mother; she had her
mother's willowy form, the same ductile voice;
but the light hair, thin lips, and sensitive nostrils,
were not of Christina's race. The passions of two
alien natures were welded in that diminutive
frame.

Howland and I had made a pet of the girl, for
she had a hundred pretty womanly ways, and a
certain sadness older than herself — a sadness
peculiar to such waifs.

The sick child lay up stairs, in Christina's
sleeping-room. One glance at the serene face
assured us there was no hope: the radiance of
another world was dawning on the forehead.

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

That night little Agnes passed away. I was
sorry for Christina, but not for little Agnes!

Christina, in her bereavement, was not noisy
and absurd, like women I have seen. Servitude
had been a hundred years taming the blood in
her veins.

Her grief expressed itself in silent caresses.
She sat by the bedside all day, dressing the child
with flowers. Now she would lay a knot of
pansies on the still heart, now she would smooth
one of the pitiful little hands — yearning, dying
for some faint sign of recognition. Then she
picked off the flowers, one by one, and rearranged
them. Fondly combed the long silk hair over
her fingers, with a sad half-smile, and not a tear
comforting her dry eyelids. There was pathos
in that.

“Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak,
Whispers the o'erfraught heart, and bids it break.”

The carriage which was to convey the child to
the cemetery, drew up at our door early in the
afternoon.

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

When Christina heard the wheels grate on the
curb-stone, her lip quivered, and she reached out
her arms, as if she would fold the babe forever on
the bosom where it could never nestle again.

“Not yet, please — not quite yet!”

The sorrow and supplication of those words
were not to be resisted.

It was almost dark when Cip raised the light
coffin in his arms, and bore it, with a sort of
rough kindness, to the carriage. His violin was
mute, that night, and many a night afterwards.

As the gate shut to, Christina stood on the
piazza, with that same sad half-smile on her lips.

“Good-bye, little Agnes!” she said, with
touching tenderness.

Then Christina went into the house, and closed
the door softly.

p448-078

Previous section

Next section