Though we lived distant but four
hundred yards of a crow's flight, we had never seen Mrs. Herd before, for
that is the way of things in this land of minding one's own business--a
slight, dark, girlish-looking woman, almost quite refined away, and with
those eyes of the dying, where the spirit is coming through, as it only
does when it knows that all is over except just the passing. She lay in
a double bed, with clean white sheets. A white-washed room, so low that
the ceiling almost touched our heads, some flowers in a bowl, the small
lattice window open. Though it was hot in there, it was better far than
the rooms of most families in towns, living on a wage of twice as much;
for here was no sign of defeat in decency or cleanliness. In her face,
as in poor Herd's, was that same strange mingling of resigned despair and
almost eager appeal, so terrible to disappoint. Yet, trying not to
disappoint it, one felt guilty of treachery: What was the good, the
kindness, in making this poor bird flutter still with hope against the
bars, when fast prison had so surely closed in round her? But what else
could we do? We could not give her those glib assurances that naive
souls make so easily to others concerning their after state.
Secretly, I think, we knew that her philosophy of calm reality, that
queer and unbidden growing tranquillity which precedes death, was nearer
to our own belief, than would be any gilt-edged orthodoxy; but
nevertheless (such is the strength of what is expected), we felt it
dreadful that we could not console her with the ordinary presumptions.
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