She did not weep, though her pale face
    The trace of recent sorrow wore;
  But, with a melancholy grace,
    She waved my shallop from the shore. 
  She did not weep; but oh! that smile
    Was sadder than the briny tear
  That trembled on my cheek the while
    I bade adieu to one so dear.

  She did not speak—­no accents fell
    From lips that breathed the balm of May;
  In broken words I strove to tell
    All that my broken heart would say. 
  She did not speak—­but to my eyes
    She raised the deep light of her own. 
  As breaks the sun through cloudy skies,
    My spirit caught a brighter tone.

  “Dear girl!” I cried, “we ne’er can part,
    My angry father’s wrath I’ll brave;
  He shall not tear thee from my heart. 
    Fly, fly with me across the wave!”
  My hand convulsively she press’d,
    Her tears were mingling fast with mine;
  And, sinking trembling on my breast,
    She murmur’d out, “For ever thine!”

CHAPTER IX

PHOEBE R—–­, AND OUR SECOND MOVING

  “She died in early womanhood,
  Sweet scion of a stem so rude;
  A child of Nature, free from art,
  With candid brow and open heart;
  The flowers she loved now gently wave
  Above her low and nameless grave.”

It was during the month of March that Uncle Joe’s eldest daughter, Phoebe, a very handsome girl, and the best of the family, fell sick.  I went over to see her.  The poor girl was very depressed, and stood but a slight chance for her life, being under medical treatment of three or four old women, who all recommended different treatment and administered different nostrums.  Seeing that the poor girl was dangerously ill, I took her mother aside, and begged her to lose no time in procuring proper medical advice.  Mrs. Joe listened to me very sullenly, and said there was no danger; that Phoebe had caught a violent cold by going hot from the wash-tub to fetch a pail of water from the spring; that the neighbours knew the nature of her complaint, and would soon cure her.

The invalid turned upon me her fine dark eyes, in which the light of fever painfully burned, and motioned me to come near her.  I sat down by her, and took her burning hand in mine.

“I am dying, Mrs. Moodie, but they won’t believe me.  I wish you would talk to mother to send for the doctor.”

“I will.  Is there anything I can do for you?—­anything I can make for you, that you would like to take?”

She shook her head.  “I can’t eat.  But I want to ask you one thing, which I wish very much to know.”  She grasped my hand tightly between her own.  Her eyes looked darker, and her feverish cheek paled.  “What becomes of people when they die?”

“Good heavens!” I exclaimed involuntarily; “can you be ignorant of a future state?”

“What is a future state?”