She felt glad , it must be owned , when Mr. Toothaker was buried , because his corpse had retained such a likeness to the man half alive that she hearkened for the sad murmur of his voice bidding her shift his pillow . But all through the next winter , though the grave had held him many a month , she fancied him calling from that cold bed , `` Rose , Rose ! Come put a blanket on my feet ! '' So now the Rosebud was the widow Toothaker . Her troubles had come early , and , tedious as they seemed , had passed before all her bloom was fled . She was still fair enough to captivate a bachelor , or with a widow 's cheerful gravity she might have won a widower , stealing into his heart in the very guise of his dead wife . But the widow Toothaker had no such projects . By her watchings and continual cares her heart had become knit to her first husband with a constancy which changed its very nature and made her love him for his infirmities , and infirmity for his sake . When the palsied old man was gone , even her early lover could not have supplied his place . She had dwelt in a sick-chamber and been the companion of a half-dead wretch till she could scarcely breathe in a free air and felt ill at ease with the healthy and the happy . She missed the fragrance of the doctor 's stuff . She walked the chamber with a noiseless footfall . If visitors came in , she spoke in soft and soothing accents , and was startled and shocked by their loud voices . Often in the lonesome evening she looked timorously from the fireside to the bed , with almost a hope of recognizing a ghastly face upon the pillow . Then went her thoughts sadly to her husband 's grave . If one impatient throb had wronged him in his lifetime , if she had secretly repined because her buoyant youth was imprisoned with his torpid age , if ever while slumbering beside him a treacherous dream had admitted another into her heart , -- yet the sick man had been preparing a revenge which the dead now claimed . On his painful pillow he had cast a spell around her ; his groans and misery had proved more captivating charms than gayety and youthful grace ; in his semblance Disease itself had won the Rosebud for a bride , nor could his death dissolve the nuptials . By that indissoluble bond she had gained a home in every sick-chamber , and nowhere else ; there were her brethren and sisters ; thither her husband summoned her with that voice which had seemed to issue from the grave of Toothaker . At length she recognized her destiny . We have beheld her as the maid , the wife , the widow ; now we see her in a separate and insulated character : she was in all her attributes Nurse Toothaker .
And Nurse XXXXX alone , with her own shrivelled lips , could make known her experience in that capacity .
Rose Rosebud Toothaker evening first infirmities month nuptials stealing throb