"Good-bye, Mary Cowell," said Aylmer, shaking with kindness the thin hand which the widow held out; "and good-bye to you, dear little one," he added, as bending forward he kissed the brow of the child, between her clustering locks of gold. "It's a solemn word, 'good-bye,' when we think of the meaning that's in it."
"I did not know as how it had any particular meaning," said Mary. "It's a word that we're always a-saying, and sometimes with a heavy heart."
"'Good-bye,' is 'God-be-with-you,' shortened to a single word. It is a blessing to the one who departs, echoed back to the one who remains. God be with you, Mary Cowell; may you feel His presence in the street—in the shop—by your board—by your bed—in your heart! You'll have many a temptation to struggle against—God be with you in the hour of temptation! You'll have many a trial to bear; God be with you then, and he will turn all these trials into blessings! You've a little one there, dear to your heart; remember that, like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him!"
"Ay, bless her heart! I love her!" thought Mary, as she led her little girl back into the small room which she hired by the week, in one of the back streets of London. "But if God pities me, like as a father pitieth his children, why does he so often leave me to want, why does he make my lot so hard? I'm sure I'd keep my darling from every trouble if I could, and if I had the means, she should sleep as soft, and fare as well as any little lady in the land!"
And in truth Mary Cowell was a kind and tender mother. The child had ever the largest share of the scanty meal, and while the mother's shawl was threadbare, soft and warm was the knitted tippet that wrapt the little girl. Mary took a pride in her Emmy; she never suffered her to run about the streets dirty and barefoot like many of the children of her neighbours. Emmy's face was washed, and her yellow curls were smoothed out every morning, and proudly did the fond mother look at her little darling. The greatest sorrow which poverty brought to Mary Cowell, was that it hindered her from giving every comfort and pleasure to her child.
"Mother," said Emmy on the following day, as she watched the widow preparing to go out, putting on her rusty black bonnet and thin patched shawl; "mother, you won't take the basket; it's Sunday; I hears the bells a-ringing."
"I must go," said Mary with a sigh.
"But didn't the good man tell us it was bad to go out a-sellin' on the Sunday?" asked the child, with a grave look of inquiry in her innocent eyes.
"Poor folk must eat," said the widow sadly; "God will not be hard upon us if want drives us to do what we never should do if we'd only enough to live on."
"May Emmy go wid you, mother?"