“No,” said Flora gently.
“Poor thing, I am glad for her sake. But might she not have a book—a Bible?”
“You may give her one, if you like. I could not.”
Flora reached her own room, went in, and bolted the door.
CHAPTER XXI.
Oh, where dwell ye, my ain sweet bairns?
I’m woe and weary grown!
Oh, Lady, we live where woe never is,
In a land to flesh unknown.—ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
It had been with a gentle sorrow that Etheldred had expected to go and lay in her resting-place, the little niece, who had been kept from the evil of the world, in a manner of which she had little dreamt. Poor Flora! she must be ennobled, she thought, by having a child where hers is, when she is able to feel anything but the first grief; and Ethel’s heart yearned to be trying, at least, to comfort her, and to be with her father, who had loved his grandchild so fondly.
It was not to be. Margaret had borne so many shocks with such calmness, that Ethel had no especial fears for her; but there are some persons who have less fortitude for others than for themselves, and she was one of these. Ethel had been her own companion-sister, and the baby had been the sunbeam of her life, during the sad winter and spring.
In the middle of the night, Ethel knocked at Richard’s door. Margaret had been seized with faintness, from which they could not bring her back; and, even when Richard had summoned Dr. Spencer, it was long ere his remedies took effect; but, at last, she revived enough to thank them, and say she was glad that papa was not there.