Alice's voice
still was going on cheerfully in the upper room with incessant
talking and little laughs to herself, or perhaps in sympathy with
her unseen companions; "unseen," I say, in preference to "fancied,"
for who knows whether God does not permit the forms of those who
were dearest when living, to hover round the bed of the dying?
Job spoke, and Mrs. Wilson answered.
So quietly that it was unnatural under the circumstances. It made a
deeper impression on the old man than any token of mere bodily
illness could have done. If she had raved in delirium, or moaned in
fever, he could have spoken after his wont, and given his opinion,
his advice, and his consolation: now he was awed into silence.
At length he pulled Mary aside into a corner of the house-place,
where Mrs. Wilson was sitting, and began to talk to her.
"Yo're right, Mary! She's no ways fit to go to Liverpool, poor
soul. Now I've seen her I only wonder the doctor could ha' been
unsettled in his mind at th' first. Choose how it goes wi' poor
Jem, she cannot go.
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