"Unfeeling girl!" cried my mother; "you can think only of him when his angel mother lies dead!"
"She would have thanked me for my anxiety," I replied, rendered courageous by distress. "I shall go and inquire after him."
"Hold, Helen! he is extremely wretched; so much so, that I could not bear to listen to his self-upbraidings, nor to witness his caresses of that hand which replied no longer to his grasp; and then his wild entreaties, that she would speak to him once more, and say that she forgave him!"
"And could you have the cruelty to leave him alone in such a state?" cried I. "Do you think his mother would so have left your child?"
My mother started—"You are right!" said she: "I will return, and do my duty by him."
"Oh! let me go with you!"
"No, Helen; I must do my duty by you too—and the poor youth at this moment is only too dangerous."
She was right, and I submitted; but I had gained my point, and she was gone back to the poor afflicted one. Before she went, however, she insisted on my going to bed; where, wearied with three nights of watching, I fell into a heavy slumber. But, oh! that wretchedness on waking, which attends the recollection of a recent affliction! and I was giving way to all the misery I felt, when, soon after eight in the morning, my mother came into my room.
She told me she had not been in bed all night, for that she dared not leave Seymour.
"How kind it was in you, my dearest mother!"