to wind up the
business.

(42) _Bereavements_

In the meantime death made its appearance in our family. Before this, I
had never met Death face to face. When my mother died I was quite a
child. She had been ailing for quite a long time, and we did not even
know when her malady had taken a fatal turn. She used all along to sleep
on a separate bed in the same room with us. Then in the course of her
illness she was taken for a boat trip on the river, and on her return a
room on the third storey of the inner apartments was set apart for her.

On the night she died we were fast asleep in our room downstairs. At
what hour I cannot tell, our old nurse came running in weeping and
crying: "O my little ones, you have lost your all!" My sister-in-law
rebuked her and led her away, to save us the sudden shock at dead of
night. Half awakened by her words, I felt my heart sink within me, but
could not make out what had happened. When in the morning we were told
of her death, I could not realize all that it meant for me.

As we came out into the verandah we saw my mother laid on a bedstead in
the courtyard. There was nothing in her appearance which showed death to
be terrible. The aspect which death wore in that morning light was as
lovely as a calm and peaceful sleep, and the gulf between life and its
absence was not brought home to us.

Only when her body was taken out by the main gateway, and we followed
the procession to the cremation ground, did a storm of grief pass
through me at the thought that mother would never return by this door
and take again her accustomed place in the affairs of her household. The
day wore on, we returned from the cremation, and as we turned into our
lane I looked up at the house towards my father's rooms on the third
storey. He was still in the front verandah sitting motionless in prayer.

She who was the youngest daughter-in-law of the house took charge of the
motherless little ones. She herself saw to our food and clothing and all
other wants, and kept us constantly near, so that we might not feel our
loss too keenly. One of the characteristics of the living is the power
to heal the irreparable, to forget the irreplaceable. And in early life
this power is strongest, so that no blow penetrates too deeply, no scar
is left permanently. Thus the first shadow of death which fell on us
left no darkness behind; it departed as softly as it came, only a
shadow.

When, in later life, I wandered