Caroline had dropped asleep
on the sitting-room lounge, across the hall. Sarah Spencer
nodded over her knitting by the table in the sick room. She had
told Eunice to go to bed, but the child refused. She still sat
huddled up on the foot of the bed, watching her mother's face
intently. Naomi appeared to sleep. The candle burned long, and
the wick was crowned by a little cap of fiery red that seemed to
watch Eunice like some impish goblin. The wavering light cast
grotesque shadows of Sarah Spencer's head on the wall. The thin
curtains at the window wavered to and fro, as if shaken by
ghostly hands.
At midnight Naomi Holland opened her eyes. The child she had
never loved was the only one to go with her to the brink of the
Unseen.
"Eunice--remember!"
It was the faintest whisper. The soul, passing over the
threshold of another life, strained back to its only earthly tie.
A quiver passed over the long, pallid face.
A horrible scream rang through the silent house. Sarah Spencer
sprang out of her doze in consternation, and gazed blankly at the
shrieking child. Caroline came hurrying in with distended eyes.
On the bed Naomi Holland lay dead.
In the room where she had died Naomi Holland lay in her coffin.
It was dim and hushed; but, in the rest of the house, the
preparations for the funeral were being hurried on. Through it
all Eunice moved, calm and silent. Since her one wild spasm of
screaming by her mother's death-bed she had shed no tear, given
no sign of grief.
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