“I never felt so lonesome with any dying person as with her last night.”

“Did she know she was dying?”

“Yes, we told her.  It seemed dreadful to let her go before her Maker without a prayer for mercy, but her thoughts, for all we told her, were more about this world than the next.  She made her will as soon as the doctor came.  We sent for him in haste, and then she told us what to put on her when we prepared her for the coffin.  That’s the gown she was to have been married in.  She said:  ’Mr. Winthrop shall see his bride in her wedding dress, at last.’”

I looked at the rich white satin, with its exquisite trimming of lace, and the fresh gathered roses instead of orange blossoms.

“Did she say nothing about where her soul was going?” I asked, yet dreading a reply.

“After he’d got the will drawn, the doctor asked her if her business for another world was satisfactorily arranged; but she said the next world would have to wait its turn after she’d got there; she had no strength left to make any more preparations.”

I turned away, too sick at heart to listen longer, but the nurse followed me with a message from the dying woman.

“It was her special request that you and Mr. Winthrop should come to her funeral, and afterward be present at the reading of the will.  I am not at liberty to explain, but I think you will regret it if you do not come.  She said that was to be the sign of reconciliation between her and Mr. Winthrop.”

“I will deliver the message, and, if possible, prevail on him to come,” I promised, and then hastily left the house.  When I reached home I went directly to the library where I found Mr. Winthrop.  He looked surprised to see me back so soon, and then, noticing traces of tears on my face, said: 

“What is wrong, little one?”

“Mrs. Le Grande died sometime during the night.  The nurse told me she showed no anxiety respecting her future state.”

He was silent.  At last I said:  “You have forgiven her, Mr. Winthrop?”

“Forgiven her!  Yes, Medoline; and if she had lived, I could never have repaid her for the lesson she taught me, and the favor she conferred on me by going away so abruptly.”

“Then you will grant her last request that we should both attend her funeral, and the reading of her will.  I have an impression she has left each of us some keepsake, as a token of her repentance.”

“Don’t you think, little one, that would be a mercenary motive to take us there?”

“But I want you to grant her dying request,” I murmured, already ashamed of my argument.

“We will both go, assuredly; and in the meantime I shall see that preparations for her funeral are suitably arranged.”

“You will look upon her dead face; she left directions as to how she should be robed for the grave.  She said you should see your bride in her wedding dress at last.”