"I do not know," Janetta answered, very seriously. "Only God knows that. We cannot tell. It is the last thing we ought say."
"But—but—you call me naughty sometimes?" the child said, fixing a pair of innocent, inquiring eyes upon her.
"Ah, but, my dear, I do not love you the less," said Janetta, out of the fullness of her heart, and she took him in her arms and kissed him.
"You are more like what I always think a mother ought to be," said Julian. What stabs children inflict on us sometimes by their artless words! Janetta shuddered a little as he spoke. "Then ought I to love her, whether she is good or bad?"
Janetta paused. She was very anxious to say only what was right.
"Yes, my darling," she said at last. "Love her always, through everything. She is your mother, and she has a right to your love."
And then, in simple words, she talked to him about right and wrong, about love and duty and life, until, with brimming eyes, he flung his arms about her, and said——
"Yes, I understand now. And I will love her and take care of her always, because God sent me to her to do that."
And he objected no more to the daily visit to his mother's room.
The sick woman's restless eyes, sharpened by illness, soon discerned the change in his demeanor.