Don't turn me off."
I dropped the paper into the small firegrate, added the other from my
breastpocket, and set them ablaze, and the new maid, entering, praised
burning paper as one of the best deodorizers known.
So my dainty rose-neighbor stayed; stayed all night, and all the next day
and night, and on and on with only flying visits to her home over the way,
until we were amazed at her endurance. The little fellow was never at ease
with her out of his wild eyes. Her touch was balm to him, and her words
peace. Oh, that they might have been healing also! But that was beyond the
reach of all our striving. His days were as the flowers and winged things
of the garden-kingdom, wherein he had been--without ever guessing it--
their citizen-king.
It awakens all the tenderness at once that I ever had for Mrs. Fontenette,
to recall what she was to him in those hours, and to us when his agonies
were all past, and he lay so stately on his short bier, and she could not
be done going to it and looking--looking--with streaming eyes.
As she stood close by the tomb, while we dumbly watched the masons seal
it, I began to believe that she blamed herself for the child's sickness
and death, and presently I knew it must be so.
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