"
Now all who could call her by her Christian name were dead years ago;
therefore it must be a dream. However, in a short time it was
repeated,--"Mary, Mary! get up; there is a great deal to do." This voice
confused her greatly. Was it possible that all that was past had been
mere fancy, that she had but dreamed those long, long years,--maturity
and motherhood, and trouble and triumph, and old age at the end of all?
It seemed to her possible that she might have dreamed the rest,--for she
had been a girl much given to visions,--but she said to herself that she
never could have dreamed old age. And then with a smile she mused, and
thought that it must be the voice that was a dream; for how could she
get up without Jervis, who had never appeared yet to draw the curtains or
make the fire? Jervis perhaps had sat up late. She remembered now to have
seen her that time in the middle of the night by her bedside; so that it
was natural enough, poor thing, that she should be late. Get up! who was
it that was calling to her so? She had not been so called to, she who had
always been a great lady, since she was a girl by her mother's side.
"Mary, Mary!" It was a very curious dream. And what was more curious
still was, that by-and-by she could not keep still any longer, but got up
without thinking any more of Jervis, and going out of her room came all
at once into the midst of a company of people, all very busy; whom she
was much surprised to find, at first, but whom she soon accustomed
herself to, finding the greatest interest in their proceedings, and
curious to know what they were doing.
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