Dashing aside the nostrum with one hand, with the
other she drew the shrinking and half-fainting girl to her side, and,
pressing her down beside her, appeared to give utterance to that which,
from the action, and the few and audible words she made out to
articulate, would seem to have been a benediction.
Rivers, seeing the motion, and remarking the almost supernatural
strength with which the last spasms had endued her, would have taken the
girl from her embrace; but his design was anticipated by the dying
woman, whose eyes glared upon him with an expression rather demoniac
than human, while her paralytic hand, shaking with ineffectual effort,
waved him off. A broken word escaped her lips here and there,
and--"sin"--"forgiveness"--was all that reached the ears of her
grandchild, when her head sank back upon the pillow, and she expired
without a groan.
A dead silence followed this event. The girl had no uttered anguish--she
spoke not her sorrows aloud; yet there was that in the wobegone
countenance, and the dumb grief, that left no doubt of the deep though
suppressed and half-subdued agony of soul within.
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