PAGE 4
Fannie’s Bridal
by
While the sunset kept shining and shining between
The old hawthorn blossoms and branches so green.
PART IV.
Day was dawning in the watch room; the lamp was dying away, the thirteen with pale expectant faces, now shadowed by fear, now lighted with hope, were motionless. With his face bowed upon his arms, Harwood had neither looked up nor spoken since Fannie slept. The old clock had struck each hour from the dial of time into the abyss of the past. Never before had time seemed to them so precious, worth so much.
The physician with his fingers upon the patient’s pulse had sat all night; once he placed his hand over her mouth, and rising with a puzzled look, walked to the window and thrust his head into the vines; then drawing his hand over his eyes, he resumed his place, and all was silent again, save the clock with its monotonous tick, tick, beating as calmly as, though human passions were trifles, and the passing away of a soul from earth, only the falling of the niches of eternity.
The sun arose, and a little bird alighting on a spray near the window, poured a flood of melody into the room. The sleeper smiled; the doctor could have sworn it was so. Her breath comes more quickly, you could see it now, fluttering between her lips; she opened her eyes and fixed them on Harwood; he took her hand and gave her the cordial prepared by the physician.
“She is saved,” was telegraphed through the apartment. The brothers prepared to go to their duties. The sisters divided, part to go home, the rest to stay and watch Fannie. Harwood, with a radiant yet anxious face, could not be persuaded to lie down, but still held the little hand and counted the life beats of her heart.
“Ah! well!” said the old doctor to the elder brother, as he buttoned his coat and pressed his hat down upon his head. “Well; there was one great doubt upon my mind–in spite of all favourable symptoms–she was too good for earth;–it says somewhere–and it kept coming into my mind all the night long–‘Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God.'”