Had it
been her own people who came and knelt about her bed, lifting their voices
in the plain prayers she was accustomed to, it might have been different;
but this well-to-do clergyman, with his sophisticated speech, seemed
foreign to her, and failed to draw her thoughts from the sleeping child.
The ninth day passed, but Esther recovered slowly, and it was decided that
she should not leave the hospital before the end of the third week. She
knew that when she crossed the threshold of the hospital there would be no
more peace for her; and she was frightened as she listened to the
never-ending rumble of the street. She spent whole hours thinking of her
dear mother, and longing for some news from home, and her face brightened
when she was told that her sister had come to see her.
"Jenny, what has happened; is mother very bad?"
"Mother is dead, that's what I've come to tell you; I'd have come before,
but----"
"Mother dead! Oh, no, Jenny! Oh, Jenny, not my poor mother!"
"Yes Esther. I knew it would cut you up dreadful; we was all very sorry,
but she's dead. She's dead a long time now, I was just a-going to tell
you----"
"Jenny, what do you mean? Dead a long time?"
"Well, she was buried more than a week ago. We were so sorry you couldn't
be at the funeral. We was all there, and had crape on our dresses and
father had crape on his 'at.
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