From where I sat I could see the house in which my mother lay. It had happened on that day, as I strolled through the woods, that I had been witness of the love which a mother had for her child. The child was young, the mother was middle-aged, and not pretty, but when she looked at her child, and held out her arms to receive it, as it ran laughing towards her with its fair hair tumbled about its head, her plain face became glorified. Its spiritual beauty smote me with pain; the child's glad voice made me tremble. Some dim sense of what had never been mine forced itself into my soul.
I had the power--which I had no doubt unconsciously cultivated--of raising pictures in the air, and I called up now this picture of the mother and her child. "Are all children like that," I thought, "and are all mothers--except me and mine?" If so, I had been robbed.
The door of the great house slowly opened, and the form of a woman stepped forth. It walked in my direction, and stopped beneath my window.
"Are you up there, Master Gabriel?"
It was Mrs. Fortress who spoke.
"Yes, I am here."
"Your mother wishes to see you."
I went down immediately, and joined Mrs. Fortress.
"Did she send you for me?"
"Yes, or I should not be here."