“Do you? I thought you didn’t! I thought I was only in the way! It has been so terrible, so dreary.”
“Why, Maimie, you have always seemed bright enough.”
“Have I? It was all outside. I’ve been thinking all night that if I was to die it would put everything straight. Nobody wants me. Was I very wrong? I’m not afraid to die,—and I should be welcome up there. Was it wrong? I know Jesus died for me,—so I needn’t be afraid. There doesn’t seem any use in my living. Even father doesn’t care to have me.”
I don’t know how she bore to say or how I bore to hear all this. The words seemed to break from her like the bursting loose of a great wave, long pent up, finding at last an outlet.
“Don’t let go!” she moaned, when I would have stirred from an awkward position. “O hold me tight,—tighter! It feels like mother’s arms again. O hold me tight!”
Then as tears, which I could not keep back, fell upon her face, she looked up, startled.
“Aunt Marion, don’t cry! Have I said anything unkind?”
“No, darling,” I said, hardly able to speak.
“Do call me 'darling,’—oh, do. It sounds lovely. It does comfort me so,” she said. “But I had better go to a hospital,—truly I had better. I don’t mind now. I shan’t mind anything, if you can love me.”
“We won’t think about the hospital yet,” I said, rallying my self-command, and speaking in a cheerful voice. “Plenty of time for that, Maimie. I want you now to lie quite still, and see if the pain does not get any better. Is it so very bad still?”