"Take me back to earth," she said; "for its griefs have followed me
hither."
The stranger advanced, and, seizing the lamp, knelt down by the bedside,
throwing the light full upon his pale and convulsed features.
"Mother, here is your son!" he exclaimed.
At that unforgotten voice, the darkness burst away at once from her soul.
She arose in bed, her eyes and her whole countenance beaming with joy, and
threw her arms about his neck. A multitude of words seemed struggling for
utterance; but they gave place to a low moaning sound, and then to the
silence of death. The one moment of happiness, that recompensed years of
sorrow, had been her last. Her son laid the lifeless form upon the pillow,
and gazed with fixed eyes on his mother's face.
As he looked, the expression of enthusiastic joy that parting life had
left upon the features faded gradually away; and the countenance, though
no longer wild, assumed the sadness which it had worn through a long
course of grief and pain. On beholding this natural consequence of death,
the thought, perhaps, occurred to him, that her soul, no longer dependent
on the imperfect means of intercourse possessed by mortals, had communed
with his own, and become acquainted with all its guilt and misery.
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