Old Lady Mary | Page 9

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 a place--in which that condition can exist." She had always been fond of discussions of this kind, and felt encouraged to find that they were still practicable. "It cannot be the--Inferno; that is clear, at least," she added, with the sprightliness which was one of her characteristics; "perhaps--Purgatory? since you infer I have something to endure."
"Words are interchangeable," he said: "that means one thing