She
tried to speak again, but her voice failed. I bent my ear and she
whispered--"Senda."
As I beckoned Senda in, Mrs. Smith motioned for me to come to her where
she stood at a window whose sash she had slightly lifted; the same to
which the moth had once been lured by the little puddle of sweet drink and
the candle.
"Do you want to see a parable?" she whispered, and all but blinded with
tears, she pointed to the lost moth lying half in, half out of the window,
still beautiful but crushed; crushed with its wings full spread, not by
anyone's choice, but because there are so many things in this universe
that not even God can help from being as they are.
At a whispered call we turned, and Senda, in the door, herself all tears,
made eager signs for us to come. The last summons had surprised even the
dying. We went in noiseless haste, and found her just relaxing on Senda's
arm. Yet she revived an instant; a quiver went through her frame like the
dying shudder of a butterfly, her eyes gazed appealingly into Senda's,
then fixed, and our poor little Titania was gone.
XXIII
The story is nearly told. Before I close let me confess how heartlessly I
have told it. Pardon that; and pardon, too, the self-consciousness that
makes me beg not to be remembered as I seem to myself in the tale--a
tiptoeing, peeping figure prowling by night after undue revelations, and
using them--to the humiliation of souls cleaner than mine could ever
pretend to be.
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