I, with so much to give, perish of thrift!
Omitted by his casual dew!
—Stephen Phillips.
The next morning Anna was sent for to go to Mrs. Nichols, whom she had hardly seen since her return from Europe.
She found her sitting in her nursery with her two little children playing about her feet. She was near her third confinement, and in the shadow of her imminent peril and the heavy repose laid upon body and spirit by her condition there was an indescribable dignity about her which Anna had never felt until now.
Before she left, Mally, with wistful eyes, looked up to her, and said, timidly:—
“Anna, you love little children. No one that I ever saw takes mine in her arms as you do—not even I who am their mother.”
“Oh, Mally!” Anna cried, sharp tears piercing their way. “If that is true, it must be because my heart never stops aching for a child of my own. I know now that we shall never have children, and I try to be reconciled; but you can never know, dear, how I envy you.”
“Do not envy me,” Mally answered, her lips trembling. “You do not know what it means to sit here to-day and see the shining of the sun on the children’s hair, and touch their little heads with my hand, and smell those roses you brought, and yet think that to-morrow at this time I may be gone beyond breath, sight, the sun, the children—”
“Dear, don’t, don’t,” Anna pleaded; “you must not think so. You have been helped through safely before; you will be again. People always have these times of dread.”