“I know it cannot, and I don’t fear it
any longer, for I’m sure I shall be your Beth
still, to love and help you more than ever.
You must take my place, Jo, and be everything to Father
and Mother when I’m gone. They will turn
to you, don’t fail them, and if it’s hard
to work alone, remember that I don’t forget
you, and that you’ll be happier in doing that
than writing splendid books or seeing all the world,
for love is the only thing that we can carry with
us when we go, and it makes the end so easy.”
“I’ll try, Beth.” and then and there
Jo renounced her old ambition, pledged herself to
a new and better one, acknowledging the poverty of
other desires, and feeling the blessed solace of a
belief in the immortality of love.
So the spring days came and went, the sky grew clearer,
the earth greener, the flowers were up fairly early,
and the birds came back in time to say goodbye to
Beth, who, like a tired but trustful child, clung
to the hands that had led her all her life, as Father
and Mother guided her tenderly through the Valley of
the Shadow, and gave her up to God.
Seldom except in books do the dying utter memorable
words, see visions, or depart with beatified countenances,
and those who have sped many parting souls know that
to most the end comes as naturally and simply as sleep.
As Beth had hoped, the ‘tide went out easily’,
and in the dark hour before dawn, on the bosom where
she had drawn her first breath, she quietly drew her
last, with no farewell but one loving look, one little
sigh.
With tears and prayers and tender hands, Mother and
sisters made her ready for the long sleep that pain
would never mar again, seeing with grateful eyes the
beautiful serenity that soon replaced the pathetic
patience that had wrung their hearts so long, and
feeling with reverent joy that to their darling death
was a benignant angel, not a phantom full of dread.
When morning came, for the first time in many months
the fire was out, Jo’s place was empty, and
the room was very still. But a bird sang blithely
on a budding bough, close by, the snowdrops blossomed
freshly at the window, and the spring sunshine streamed
in like a benediction over the placid face upon the
pillow, a face so full of painless peace that those
who loved it best smiled through their tears, and
thanked God that Beth was well at last.
LEARNING TO FORGET
Amy’s lecture did Laurie good, though, of course,
he did not own it till long afterward. Men seldom
do, for when women are the advisers, the lords of
creation don’t take the advice till they have
persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended
to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds,
they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it.
If it fails, they generously give her the whole.
Laurie went back to his grandfather, and was so dutifully
devoted for several weeks that the old gentleman declared
