And
it opened its big eyes as if it was months old. The
little, little thing! Oh, the poor, young Mrs.
Doctor!"
At sunset the little soul that had come with the
dawning went away, leaving heartbreak behind it. Miss
Cornelia took the wee, white lady from the kindly but
stranger hands of the nurse, and dressed the tiny
waxen form in the beautiful dress Leslie had made for
it. Leslie had asked her to do that. Then she took it
back and laid it beside the poor, broken, tear-blinded
little mother.
"The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away,
dearie," she said through her own tears. "Blessed be
the name of the Lord."
Then she went away, leaving Anne and Gilbert alone
together with their dead.
The next day, the small white Joy was laid in a velvet
casket which Leslie had lined with apple-blossoms, and
taken to the graveyard of the church across the harbor.
Miss Cornelia and Marilla put all the little love-made
garments away, together with the ruffled basket which
had been befrilled and belaced for dimpled limbs and
downy head. Little Joy was never to sleep there; she
had found a colder, narrower bed.
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