"God wouldn't do such a dreadful thing!" she at last said to herself. "Never was a child adored as Mabel is. There is not one among them all, half so sweet. Why should He take her? He won't! I know He won't! What a fool I am for crying so! And there is aunty slaving over the twins!"
She flew to the washstand and tried to remove the traces of her tears; then hurried to the nursery, where she found both babies fretting dismally, and Mrs. Grey doing her best to comfort them.
"I have been dreadfully selfish, aunty," she said, taking one of the twins from her. "I must have a very contracted mind, for it can only hold one thing at a time. I am as brimful of Mabel as a nest is full of birds."
"It isn't so much a contracted mind, as an exaggerating heart," was the reply. "You magnify every one you love, and every pursuit you engage in."
The nurses, who had been having their breakfasts, came now to the nursery, and Margaret drew Mrs. Grey away, to see if she could find comfort in her.
"God wouldn't do such a thing as to take away Mabel, would He, aunty?"
"I used to think He could not do these agonizing things; but He can, He does, and He knows why I have trembled for Belle when I have seen that steadfast little lover of hers follow her as the needle does the pole. It is Maud and her mother over again—only—"
She broke down now, but only for a moment, and asked Margaret's pardon as meekly as a child.
"Is it wrong, then, to cry?" asked Margaret, bewildered.
"It depends on the time and place, and how old one is. I don't think people of my age ought to indulge themselves by giving way to grief in which the spectator cannot share.