Willy Burke, or, The Irish orphan in America - Digital Repository ...

58 WILLY BURKE; OB,
Mrs. Watkins, I wasn't thinkin' of cursin' you or any
one else—God knows I wasn't—but I was goin' to pray
the merciful God that you might never have as sore a
heart as I have this day". So saying, she moved away,
and slowly descended the steps in front of the door,
being, indeed, scarcely able to support herself. Mrs.
Watkins stood and looked after her a moment, as she
moved heavily along, her thin, attenuated figure bub
scantily covered from the cold, sharp air. She thought
of the provocation she had so wantonly given, and of the
Christian meekness of her parting words, and she said
within herself— " How unlike all that I have heard and
read of these Eomanists. After all, this poor woman
seems to have some little glimmering of Gospel light".
For a moment her better nature predominated, and she
was about to call the poor washerwoman back, in order
to apologise for her unkindness, but, alas, the evil spirit
of pride resumed the mastery, the door was closed after
the poor, shivering woman, and the opportunity passed
away—never to return.
Mrs. Burke, on reaching her own dwelling, was unable
to ascend the stairs without assistance from the good
woman of the house. The disease which had been so long
manfully resisted, would no longer be baffled or put off,
and the heart-rending emotions of the last twenty -four
hours brought on a violent fever. That evening the
poor mother lay on her bed in the first wild paroxysms
of a high fever, while her three children stood around,
stupefied with grief and terror of they knew not what.
It was fortunate that Willy, in the first hours of his
mother's illness, had run to tell the priest (not that he
feared his mother's death, but that he knew no other