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Page 66
"Mother, I'm so sorry."
"Yes, Maggie."
"And oh!" she threw out her arms; "O, I'm so tired, I'm so tired!"
Her mother raised her, laying her head upon her shoulder.
"Mother'll rest you, Maggie," soothing her, as if she sang again her
first lullaby, when she came to her, the little pure baby,--her only
one.
"Mother," once more, "the door was unlocked."
"It has been unlocked every night for seven years, my child."
She closed her eyes after that, some stupor creeping over her, her
features in the firelight softening and melting, with the old child-look
coming into them. Looking up at last, she saw another face bending over
her, a face in which grief had worn stern lines; there were tears in
the eyes, and some recent struggle quivering out of it.
"Father, I didn't mean to come in,--I didn't really; but I was so cold.
Don't send me off, father! I couldn't walk so far,--I shall be out of
your way in a little while,--the cough--"
"_I_ send you away, Maggie? I--I might have done it once; God forgive
me! He sent you back, my daughter,--I thank him."
A darkness swept over both faces then; she did not even hear Muff's
whining cry at her ear.
"Mother," at last, the light of the room coming back, "there's Somebody
who was wounded. I guess I'm going to find him. Will he forget it all?"
"All, Maggie."
For what did He tell the sin-laden woman who came to him once, and dared
not look into his face? Was ever soul so foul and crimson-stained that
he could not make it pure and white? Does he not linger till his locks
are wet with the dews of night, to listen for the first, faint call of
any wanderer crying to him in the dark?
So He came to Maggie. So he called her by her name,--Magdalene, most
precious to him; whom he had bought with a great price; for whom, with
groanings that cannot be uttered, he had pleaded with his Father:
Magdalene, chosen from all eternity, to be graven in the hollow of his
hand, to stand near to him before the throne, to look with fearless
eyes into his face, to touch him with her happy tears among his sinless
ones forever.
And think you that _then_, any should scorn the woman whom the high and
lofty One, beholding, did thus love? Who could lay anything to the
charge of his elect?
Perhaps he told her all this, in the pauses of the storm, for something
in her face transfigured it.
"Mother, it's all over now. I think I shall be your little girl again."
And so, with a smile, she went to Him. The light flashed broader and
brighter about the room, and on the dead face there,--never Meg's again.
A strong man, bowed over it, was weeping. Muff moaned out his brute
sorrow where the still hand touched him.
But Martha Ryck, kneeling down beside her only child, gave thanks to
God.
What Was the Matter?
I could not have been more than seven or eight years old, when it
happened; but it might have been yesterday. Among all other childish
memories, it stands alone. To this very day it brings with it the old,
utter sinking of the heart, and the old, dull sense of mystery.
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