“Help me,” Margaret replied, not heeding the question, “help me to lay the treasure of my heart—­my breakin’ heart—­upon his own little bed within, he will not long use it—­tendherly, Peggy, oh, Peggy dear, tendherly to the broken flower—­broken—­broken—­broken, never to rise his fair head again; oh, he is dead,” she said, in a calm low voice, “my heart tells me that he is dead—­see how his limbs hang, how lifeless they hang.  My treasure—­our treasure—­our sweet, lovin’, and only little man—­our only son sure—­our only son is dead—­and where, oh, where, is the mother’s pride out of him now—­where is my pride out of him now?”

They laid him gently and tenderly—­for even the servants loved him as if he had been a relation—­upon the white counterpane of his own little crib, where he had slept many a sweet and innocent sleep, and played many a lightsome and innocent play with his little sisters.  His mother felt for his pulse, but she could feel no pulse, she kissed his passive lips, and then—­oh, woful alternative of affliction!—­she turned to his equally insensible father.

“Oh, ma’am,” said one of the girls, who had gone over to look at Art; “oh, for God’s sake, ma’am, come here—­here is blood comin’ out of the masther’s mouth.”

She was at the bedside in an instant, and there, to deepen her sufferings almost beyond the power of human fortitude, she saw the blood oozing slowly out of his mouth.  Both the servants were now weeping and sobbing as if their hearts would break.

“Oh, mistress dear,” one of them exclaimed, seizing her affectionately by both hands, and looking almost distractedly into her face, “oh, mistress dear, what did you ever do to desarve this?”

“I don’t know, Peggy,” she replied, “unless it was settin’ my father’s commands, and my mother’s at defiance; I disobeyed them both, and they died without blessin’ either me or mine.  But oh,” she said, clasping her hands, “how can one poor wake woman’s heart stand all this—­a double death—­husband and son—­son and husband—­and I’m but one woman, one poor, feeble, weak woman—­but sure,” she added, dropping on her knees, “the Lord will support me.  I am punished, and I hope forgiven, and he will now support me.”

She then briefly, but distractedly, entreated the divine support, and rose once more with a heart, the fibres of which were pulled asunder, as it were, between husband and son, each of whose lips she kissed, having wiped the blood from those of her husband, with a singular blending together of tenderness, distraction and despair.  She went from the one to the other, wringing her hands in dry agony, feeling for life in their hearts and pulses, and kissing their lips with an expression of hopelessness so pitiable and mournful, that the grief of the servants was occasioned more by her sufferings than by the double catastrophe that had occurred.

The doctor’s house, as it happened, was not far from theirs, and in a very brief period he arrived.