His Grace — page 63: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

HIS GRACE. 57 Something about the attitude of the frail little figure had alarmed her; her efforts to restore animation had failed ; and then she had sent for the doctor, although long before he appeared, there had been no doubt as to the nature of his verdict. “IT didn’t like to tell you what had happened,” Nora said in conclusion, ‘ because I knew how dreadfully you would feel it, and it seemed a pity that you should be made unhappy through all that long journey, with nobody to speak a word of comfort to you. But you must try to take comfort now, Phil; for her life wasn’t a happy one of late, you know, and the doctor says she must have died almost painlessly. After all, there are many worse things than death.” I could quite understand her thinking so, poor child, and I was touched, as well I might be, by her ready sympathy with my sorrow, which was not and could not be, so heavy a one to bear as hers. Nevertheless, the loss which had fallen upon us was a deep and bitter grief to us both. It is one with which almost every- body must of necessity make acquaintance, and, like other griefs, it is certain to be cured by lapse of time; yet there cannot be a great many people who have had a mother so patient, so indulgent and so self-sacrificing as ours had always shown herself to us, nor perhaps are there many people to whom the death of a mother means all that it meant inourcase. Mr. Burgess, who looked in in the course of the day, but whom Nora declined to see, told me that we had been most merci- fully dealt with and ought to feel very thankful. Pos- sibly he was right; yet I didn’t think at the time, and don’t think now, that I myself should use such lan- guage if I wished to be consolatory. Gomicboo (E(0) m cS