By her father's desire, Mattie went to Lindenholm, and remained there, so as to be a comfort to the widow. Mattie never forgot those days, the breathless suspense, the fear, the earnestness with which the unhappy mother would follow her about from room to room, saying always the same thing:
"Never mind talking to me, Mattie; pray for my son."
There came a day when the doctor said he feared no human means could save him—when the white-haired mother flung herself on her knees, crying loudly to Heaven to spare her son. She had preached, in her stern, cold way of resignation, to others, but in this, the hour of her terrible trial, she forgot all; she besieged Heaven, as it were, for her son. Even Mattie shrank from those wild words.
"Let me suffer, my God!" she cried; "send me torture and death, but spare him! let me suffer, let him live! I would give my body to be burned, my heart to be riven—but spare my only son!"
Faint with the fervor of her own words, she fell on her face, and there lay till Mattie touched her gently.
"He is asleep," she said; "Earle has fallen into a deep sleep, and the doctor says he has taken a turn for the better."
She could not thank God, for her rapture of gratitude found no words.
Who is it that says that "a prayer granted is sometimes a curse?"
The time was coming when those who loved him best said it was the greatest pity that he had not died in this illness; he would then have died with his mother's hope of heaven infolding him.