My Mothers Rival | Page 7

the faintest sound, to the pretty rooms that had been set aside as nurseries. One of them had been beautifully decorated with white lace and flowers. There in the midst stood the berceaunette in which I had lain when I was a child.
My father took me up to it--at first I saw only the flowers, pale snowdrops and blue violets with green leaves; then I saw a sweet waxen face with closed eyes and lips.
Oh! baby brother, how often I have longed to be at rest with you! I was not frightened; the beautiful, tiny face, now still in death, had no horrors for me.
"May I kiss him, papa?" I asked. Oh, baby brother, why not have stayed with us for a few hours at least? I should like to have seen his pretty eyes and to have seen him just once with him lips parted; as it was, they were closed in the sweet, silent smile of death.
"Papa, what name should you have given him had he lived?" I asked.
"Your mother's favorite name--Gerald," he replied. "Ah, Laura, had he lived, poor little fellow, he would have been 'Sir Gerald Tayne, of Tayne Abbey.' How much dies in a child--who knows what manner of man this child might have been or what he might have done?"
"Papa, what is the use of such a tiny life?" I asked.
"Not even a philosopher could answer that question," said my father.
I kissed the sweet, baby face again and again. "Good-by, my little brother," I said. Ah! where shall I see his face again?

CHAPTER IV.
My mother was in danger and my baby brother dead. The gloom that lay over our house was something never to be forgotten; the silence that was never broken by one laugh or one cheerful word, the scared faces--for every one loved "my lady." One fine morning, when the snowdrops had grown more plentiful, and there was a faint sign of the coming spring in the air, they took my baby brother to bury him. Such a tiny coffin, such tiny white wreaths, a little white pall covered with flowers. My father would not let black come near him.
My father wept bitter tears.
"There sleeps my little son and heir, Laura," he said to me--"my little boy. It is as though he had just peeped out of Heaven at this world, and, not liking it, had gone back again."
A pretty little white monument was put up to the baby Gerald. My mother chose the epitaph, which I had always thought so pretty. It was simply this--"The angels gather such lilies for God."
By degrees some little sunshine stole back, the dreadful silence lessened, the servants began to walk about without list slippers, the birds were carried back to the beautiful aviary--my mother's favorite nook; the doctors smiled as they came down the grand staircase. I heard Sir Roland whistling and singing as he had done weeks ago.
At last I was admitted to see her. One fine March morning, when the wind was blowing freshly and tossing the big, bare branches, I was taken to her room. I should not have known her; a pale, languid lady lay there in the place of my laughing, beautiful mother; two large blue eyes full of tears looked at me; two thin, white arms clasped me, and then I was lying on my mother's heart. Oh, my darling, if we could have died then.
"My little Laura, I was afraid I should never see you again," whispered a faint voice.
Ah, me, the ecstasy of the next half-hour! I sat close by her side and told her how the snowdrops were growing and the purple and golden crocuses made the garden seem quite gay. I told her where I had found the first violets, some of which I had brought to her. I cannot tell what it was like to me to feel my mother's hand on my head once more.
Then came a brief time of happiness. My mother improved a little, and was carried from the bedroom where she had spent so many weeks to her boudoir, and I was allowed to be with her all day.
"She would be better soon and able to go out," my father said, and then the happy old times would come back again. My mother would walk with me through the picture gallery at sunset, and more, she would dance with flying feet and run races with me in the wood. Oh, how I longed for the time when she would regain the color in her face and light in her eyes! They said I must be patient, it would come in time. But, alas! it was weary waiting; the days seemed as weeks to me, and yet my dear, beautiful mother was still confined to her room and to her bed.