No poppy-draught could enable the two poor women to forget such terrible tidings, and it is no wonder the poor mother pined away.
As the stream Flows to the sea and nevermore returns, So ebbed and ebbed her life.

I cannot tell What in those days I suffered.

Nature's self Seemed to be mourning with me, for the breeze Of Autumn breathed its last, and as it died The vesper-bell from yonder village pealed A requiem o'er my mother.

Thus she died, But dead yet lives--for, ever, face and form, She stands before my eyes; and in my ears I ever seem to hear her loving voice, Speaking as in the days when, strict and kind, She taught me household lore,--in all a mother.
Having carefully tended her mother to the end, poor little White Aster lived alone, until one day her father suddenly appeared, having found at last a way to escape and rejoin them.

He was, however, broken-hearted on learning of his wife's death, and, hoping to comfort him, White Aster paid him all manner of filial attentions.