"It is strange," she thought to herself, "very strange to think of--that
we two, old and tired and ready to rest, should be here left behind by
them all. All my pretty little ones, who might almost, some of them,
have been grandparents themselves by this time! Left behind to take care
of Duke's babies--ah, my brave boy, that was the hardest blow of all!
The others were too delicate and fragile for this world--I learnt not to
murmur at their so quickly taking flight. But he--so strong and full of
life--who had come through all the dangers of babyhood and childhood,
who had grown up so good and manly, so fit to do useful work in the
world--was there no other victim for the deadly cholera's clutch, out
there in the burning East?" and Grandmamma shuddered as a vision of the
terrible scenes of a plague-stricken land, that she had more than once
seen for herself, passed before her. "We had little cause to rejoice in
the times of peace when they came. It would have seemed less terrible
for him to be killed on the battlefield. Still--it was on the
battlefield of duty. My boy, my own good boy! No wonder she could not
live without him--poor, gentle little Lavinia, almost a child herself.
Though if she had been but a little stronger,--if she could but have
breasted the storm of sorrow till her youth came back again to her a
little in the pleasure of watching these dear babies improving as they
did,--she might have been a great comfort to us, and she would have
found work to do which would have kept her from over-grieving. Poor
Lavinia! How well I remember the evening they arrived--she and the two
poor yellow shrivelled-up looking little creatures. I remember, sad at
heart as we were--only two months after the bitter news of my boy's
death!--Nurse and I could almost have found it in our hearts to laugh
when the ayah unwrapped them for us to see. They were so like two
miserable little unfledged birds! And poor Lavinia so proud of them,
through her tears--what did she know of babies, poor dear?--and looking