Then my mother, who was holding my hand and sometimes putting it to her
lips, said:
"Tell me everything that has happened."
As soon as my little tongue was loosed I told her all about my life at
the Convent--about the Reverend Mother and the nuns and the novices and
the girls (all except Sister Angela and Alma) and the singing of the
hymn to the Virgin--talking on and on and on, without observing that,
after a while, my mother's eyes had closed again, and that her hand had
become cold and moist.
At length she said: "Is it getting dark, Mary?"
I told her it was night and the lamp was burning.
"Is it going out then?" she asked, and when I answered that it was not
she did not seem to hear, so I stopped talking, and for some time there
was silence in which I heard nothing but the ticking of the clock on the
mantelpiece, the barking of a sheep dog a long way off, and the husky
breathing in my mother's throat.
I was beginning to be afraid when the nurse returned. She was going to
speak quite cheerfully, but after a glance at my mother she went out
quickly and came back in a moment with Doctor Conrad and Father Dan.
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