'Don't be alarmed, dear child,' she said; 'there's nothing the matter; but I could not sleep, knowing that you were unhappy. You too, my dear, were a long time before you went to sleep.'
Then I knew that she must have watched and waited at my bedroom door until I had blown out my candle.
'What time is it, mother?'
'It must be three o'clock, my dear.'
'O, mother! And you awake at this time of the night for me!'
She smiled softly. Something of worship for that pure nature stole into my heart as I looked into her dear eyes. But there was grief in them, too, and I asked her the reason.
'Do you know, my darling,' she said, with a wistful yearning look, and with a sigh which she vainly strove to check, that you went to bed to-night without kissing me? For the first time in your life, dear child; for the first time in your life!'
In a passion of remorse I threw my arms around her neck, and kissed her again and again, and asked her forgiveness, and said, 'How could I--how could I be so unloving and unkind?' But she stopped my self-reproaches with her lips on my lips, and with broken words of joy and thankfulness. She folded me in her arms, and there was silence between us for many minutes--silence made sacred by love as pure and faithful as ever dwelt in woman's breast. Then I drew the clothes around her, and she lay by my side, saying that she would wait until I was asleep.
'This is like the old time, mother,' I whispered, 'when there was no one else but you and me. But I love you more than I did then, mother.'
'My darling child!' she whispered, in return; 'how you comfort me! But I won't have my dear boy speak another word, except good-night.'