But the messenger, who so often seems capricious in his summons, took
first the aged mother, and the poor girl found that life had yet the
power to bring her grief, unexpected and severe.
And now the neighbors met in council. Caroline could not be left quite
alone in the house. Should they take turns, and stay with her by night
as well as by day?
"Not so," said the blacksmith's wife; "the house will never seem like
home to her now, poor thing! and 't would be kind of dreary for her to
change about her _nusses_ so. I'll tell you what; all my children
but one are married and gone off; we have property enough; I will have
a good room fixed for her, and she shall live with us. My husband
wants her to, as much as me."
The council acquiesced in this truly humane arrangement, and Caroline
lives there still; and we are assured that none of her friends dread
her departure so much as the blacksmith's wife.
"'Ta'n't no trouble at all to have her," she says, "and if it was, I
shouldn't care; she is so good and still, and talks so pretty! It's
as good bein' with her as goin' to meetin'!"
De Maistre relates some similar passages as to a sick girl in St.
Petersburgh, though his mind dwelt more on the spiritual beauty
evinced in her remarks, than on the good she had done to those around
her.
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