Old Lady Mary | Page 9

have made the best of it? Your old age has been very
pleasant."
"Ah! you acknowledge that I am old, then?" cried Lady Mary with a
smile.
"You are old no longer, and you are a great lady no longer. Don't you
see that something has happened to you? It is seldom that such a great
change happens without being found out."
"Yes; it is true I have got better all at once. I feel an extraordinary
renewal of strength. I seem to have left home without knowing it; none
of my people seem near me. I feel very much as if I had just awakened
from a long dream. Is it possible," she said, with a wondering look,
"that I have dreamed all my life, and after all am just a girl at home?"
The idea was ludicrous, and she laughed. "You see I am very much
improved indeed," she said.
She was still so far from perceiving the real situation, that some one
came towards her out of the group of people about--some one whom
she recognized--with the evident intention of explaining to her how it
was. She started a little at the sight of him, and held out her hand, and
cried: "You here! I am very glad to see you--doubly glad, since I was
told a few days ago that you had--died."
There was something in this word as she herself pronounced it that
troubled her a little. She had never been one of those who are afraid of
death. On the contrary, she had always taken a great interest in it, and
liked to hear everything that could be told her on the subject. It gave
her now, however, a curious little thrill of sensation, which she did not
understand: she hoped it was not superstition.
"You have guessed rightly," he said, "quite right. That is one of the
words with a false meaning, which is to us a mere symbol of something
we cannot understand. But you see what it means now."
It was a great shock, it need not be concealed. Otherwise, she had been

quite pleasantly occupied with the interest of something new, into
which she had walked so easily out of her own bedchamber, without
any trouble, and with the delightful new sensation of health and
strength. But when it flashed upon her that she was not to go back to
her bedroom again, nor have any of those cares and attentions which
had seemed necessary to existence, she was very much startled and
shaken. Died? Was it possible that she personally had died? She had
known it was a thing that happened to everybody; but yet--And it was a
solemn matter, to be prepared for, and looked forward to, whereas--"If
you mean that I too--" she said, faltering a little; and then she added, "it
is very surprising," with a trouble in her mind which yet was not all
trouble. "If that is so, it is a thing well over. And it is very wonderful
how much disturbance people give themselves about it--if this is all."
"This is not all, however," her friend said; "you have an ordeal before
you which you will not find pleasant. You are going to think about your
life, and all that was imperfect in it, and which might have been done
better."
"We are none of us perfect," said Lady Mary, with a little of that
natural resentment with which one hears one's self accused,--however
ready one may be to accuse one's self.
"Permit me," said he, and took her hand and led her away without
further explanation. The people about were so busy with their own
occupations that they took very little notice; neither did she pay much
attention to the manner in which they were engaged. Their looks were
friendly when they met her eye, and she too felt friendly, with a sense
of brotherhood. But she had always been a kind woman. She wanted to
step aside and help, on more than one occasion, when it seemed to her
that some people in her way had a task above their powers; but this her
conductor would not permit. And she endeavored to put some questions
to him as they went along, with still less success.
"The change is very confusing," she said; "one has no standard to judge
by. I should like to know something about--the kind of people--and
the--manner of life."

"For a time," he said, "you will have enough to do, without troubling
yourself about that."
This naturally produced an uneasy sensation in her mind. "I suppose,"
she said, rather timidly, "that we are not in--what we have been
accustomed to call heaven?"
"That is a word," he said, "which expresses rather a condition than a
place."
"But there must be