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Page 31
Mrs. Stanhope became more tranquil as these words fell on her ear, but
her face still wore an expression of inconsolable grief. She was silent
a few moments, and then she told Mrs. Stein that she meant to take Nora
home and lay her beside the little boy in the garden by the Rhine, and
that she should send to her true friend and house-keeper Clarissa to
come at once to Oak-ridge to make the preparations for their return, and
accompany her on her painful journey. This arrangement was a great
relief to Mrs. Stein, who returned home with an easier mind, and
hastened to impart this bit of good news to her sister. But aunty was
nowhere to be found, and Emma, who was sitting alone in an unusually
subdued mood, told her mother that she was probably with Fred, who had
been looking for her, "to show her a beetle or some such thing," she
supposed! So Mrs. Stein sat down with her little girl, who wanted to ask
her questions about Nora. Emma longed to hear that Nora had not suffered
from her neglect, and had been contented and happy without her; for she
had been feeling more and more how selfish she had been in never
repeating her first visit, merely because she had not herself enjoyed
it, never thinking what she might have done for poor sick Nora.
Fred had sought his aunt for a long time, and when he found her he
carried her off to a remote part of the garden, where stood a lonely
summer-house. There he drew her down beside him on a bench, and said he
had something to say to her alone.
"Do you know, aunty, I saw Nora to-day, and she is dead; and I cannot
see how she can come to life again, and go to heaven."
"You cannot understand that, Fred? Neither can I. But the good God does
many things which we cannot understand, and yet we know they are. And as
we are told by One whom we can trust that we shall live again after our
body dies, we must believe it. I believe it, Fred, with all my heart."
"But," argued Fred, "I have always thought that life is the same in men
as in animals, and when an animal dies, it can never be made alive
again. I have noticed that myself."
At this moment, the conversation was interrupted, for they saw the
doctor in the garden, and aunty hastened to join him, as she had
promised to visit his cauliflowers with him this evening.
Fred sat still lost in thought; he did not care for cauliflowers.
CHAPTER IX.
A LAST JOURNEY AND A FIRST.
A large travelling-carriage passed by the door of the doctor's house, in
which sat alone, a lady clothed in black. It was Clarissa, who had come
to carry little Nora to her home by the Rhine. The doctor's four
children were standing in the garden, and they watched it as it passed,
thinking what a sad journey its occupant must have had. Their aunt stood
at an upper window watching it also, and as it disappeared round the
corner she beckoned Fred to come up to her in his room. He came running
up the stairs.
"See, Fred! I am clearing your room up a little. There are a great many
useless things here; why should you keep them? See; in this box is a
dead creature; let's begin with this, and throw it away"; and as she
spoke she carried the box towards a window.
"What are you doing, aunty?" cried the boy. "That is my very best
chrysalis; it will turn into a beautiful moth by and by; one of the
finest of our butterflies, with wonderful marks on its wings."
"What nonsense!" said his aunt. "This little creature is utterly dead;
don't you see it is stiff and motionless."
"Don't you know about caterpillars, aunty dear?" exclaimed the boy,
holding fast to his box. "I'll tell you about it. This is a chrysalis;
and it seems entirely dead, but it's only the outside that is dead.
Inside, where we cannot see it, lies something that is alive; and by and
by, when the time comes, this shell will be cast off, for there will be
no farther use for it, and out will fly a new lovely creature with
exquisite wings."
"But, Fred, I don't understand how that can be possible! How can a poor
worm, that only crawls about all its life, die, and then suddenly turn
into a beautiful new creature with wings, and fly away leaving its old
body behind? Do you understand it, Fred?"
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