They
thought my nursery was gayer for her, I suppose; but she could not
live. She was beautiful when she was dead, and I cried bitterly.
The light one, the light one--the heavy one to come," crooned the
Welshwoman. And she was right. My father took the room after my
mother was gone, and day by day he grew thinner and paler and
sadder.
"The heavy one, the heavy one--all of lead," moaned my nurse, one
night in December, standing still, just as she was going to take
away the light after putting me to bed. Then she took me up again
and wrapped me in a little gown, and led me away to my father's
room. She knocked, but no one answered. She opened the door, and
we found him in his easy chair before the fire, very white, quite
dead.
So I was alone with the Welshwoman till strange people came, and
relations whom I had never seen; and then I heard them saying that
I must be taken away to some more cheerful place. They were kind
people, and I will not believe that they were kind only because I
was to be very rich when I grew to be a man. The world never
seemed to be a very bad place to me, nor all the people to be
miserable sinners, even when I was most melancholy.
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