After a pause, 'There was something you were to say to
him,' my sister reminded her. 'Luck,' muttered a voice as from the
dead, 'luck.' And then the old smile came running to her face like
a lamp-lighter, and she said to me, 'I am ower far gone to read,
but I'm thinking I am in it again!' My father put her Testament in
her hands, and it fell open - as it always does - at the Fourteenth
of John. She made an effort to read but could not. Suddenly she
stooped and kissed the broad page. 'Will that do instead?' she
asked.
CHAPTER X - ART THOU AFRAID HIS POWER SHALL FAIL?
For years I had been trying to prepare myself for my mother's
death, trying to foresee how she would die, seeing myself when she
was dead. Even then I knew it was a vain thing I did, but I am
sure there was no morbidness in it. I hoped I should be with her
at the end, not as the one she looked at last but as him from whom
she would turn only to look upon her best-beloved, not my arm but
my sister's should be round her when she died, not my hand but my
sister's should close her eyes. I knew that I might reach her too
late; I saw myself open a door where there was none to greet me,
and go up the old stair into the old room. But what I did not
foresee was that which happened. I little thought it could come
about that I should climb the old stair, and pass the door beyond
which my mother lay dead, and enter another room first, and go on
my knees there.
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