As Haldane was lifting her to give her a drink he said: "Perhaps Bertie will see papa very soon."
Hearing the word "papa," the child forgot her pain for a moment and smiled. At that instant there was a blinding flash of lightning, and the appalling thunder-peal followed without any interval.
Both Mrs. Poland and Amy gave a faint and involuntary cry of alarm, but Haldane's eyes were fixed on the little smiling face that he held so near to his own. The smile did not fade. The old, perplexed expression of pain did not come back, and after a moment he said quietly and very gently: "Bertie is with her father;" and he lifted her up and carried her to her mother, and then to Amy, that they might see the beautiful and smiling expression of the child's face.
But their eyes were so blinded by tears that they could scarcely see the face from which all trace of suffering had been banished almost as truly as from the innocent spirit.
Having laid her back in the crib, and arranged the little form as if sleeping, he carried the crib, with Aunt Saba's help, to the room where Mr. Poland had died. Then he told the old negress to return and remain with her mistress, and that he would watch over the body till morning.
That quiet watch by the pure little child, with a trace of heaven's own beauty on her face, was to Haldane like the watch of the shepherds on the hillside near Bethlehem. At times, in the deep hush that followed the storm, he was almost sure that he heard, faint and far away, angelic minstrelsy and song.
Haldane's unusually healthful and vigorous constitution had thus far resisted the infection, but after returning from the sad duty of laying little Bertha's remains by those of her father, he felt the peculiar languor which is so often the precursor of the chill and subsequent fever. Although he had scarcely hoped to escape an attack, he had never before realized how disastrous it would be to the very ones he had come to serve. Who was there to take care of him? Mrs. Poland was almost helpless from nervous prostration. Amy required absolute quiet to prevent the more fatal relapse, which is almost certain to follow exertion made too early in convalescence. He knew that if he were in the house she would make the attempt to do something for him, and he also knew it would be at the risk of her life. Old Aunt Saba was worn out in her attendance on Bertha, Amy, and Mrs. Poland. Her husband, and a stranger who had been at last secured to assist him, were required in the household duties.