Still he made no movement to comply with her request.
"If you do not send for her at once," said his wife, "I will get up and go from the house and die in the roadway. God will give me strength to do it. I must see my sister, I must see my sister!"
Awed, if not convinced, and fearful, too, lest any disturbance which it was in his power to avoid might bring him into unfavourable notice, and interfere with his cherished plans, he said, reluctantly, "I will send for her."
"You are not deceiving me? You are not promising what you do not intend to perform?"
"I will send for her, I tell you."
"If you do not," she said—and there was a firmness in her weak tones which was not without its effect upon him—"misfortune will attend you all the days of your life. Nothing you do will prosper."
He was superstitious, and believed in omens; and this sounded like a prophecy, the warning of which he dared not neglect. His wife's eyes followed him as he stepped to his desk and sat down and wrote. Presently he left the room, and went in search of Tom Barley, to whom he gave a letter, bidding him to post it in the village. Grumbling at what he had done, he returned to his wife.
"Is my sister coming?" she asked.
"I have written to her," he replied. "Go to sleep and rest. You will be better in the morning."
"Yes," she sighed, as she pressed her child close to her bosom, "I shall be better in the morning. Oh, my sweet flower! my heart's treasure! Guard her, gracious Lord! Make her life bright and happy—as mine once promised to be! I could have given love for love; but it was denied to me. Not mine the fault—not mine, not mine!"