Farewell, love!--farewell! If"--
Emotion and the strugglings of death overpowered her--her speech
failed--her eyes became fixed--her soul passed away, and the husband sat
in stupefaction and in agony, holding the hand of his dead wife to his
breast. He became conscious that she stirred not--that she breathed
not--oh! that she was not! and the wail of the distracted widower rang
suddenly and wildly through the cottage, startling his infants from
their slumber, and, as some who stood round the bed said, causing even
the features of the dead to move, as though the departed spirit had
lingered, casting a farewell glance upon the body, and passed over it
again, as the voice it had loved to hear rose loud in agony.
The father of Maria came and attended her body to its last, long
resting-place. But he did no more; and he left the churchyard without
acknowledging that he perceived his grief-stricken son-in-law.
In a few months it was necessary for Lieutenant Morris to return to
India, and he could not take his motherless and tender infants thither.
He wrote to the parents of his departed Maria; he told them of her last
request, breathed by her last words; he implored them, as they had once
loved her, during his absence to protect his children.
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