"I want all your love, mother!"
"You have it, dear child!"
"And yet you are unhappy."
Martha did not reply; and after a pause Lizzie continued, in a low sweet voice:
"Mother, I am going to make you happy."
"Lizzie!"
"Lying there as Alfred is lying now--dying, perhaps--I may consider myself absolved from my promise. Ah, mother, you are not tender to him; you have not kissed him; you have no kind thoughts in your heart for him! Is it not so? You do not answer, and I love him so! Mother, kiss Alfred."
Martha leant towards the sleeping man; but fast-flowing tears came from her eyes, and she wrenched herself away from him, and said, in a choking voice,
"I cannot, child; I cannot!"
"Ah, mother, you wrong him," said Lizzie tenderly. "And me. You spoke some words to me last evening. They are in my mind now. Look at me, mother. Place your hand in mine."