“Why are you so happy, little mite?” I asked, for she was no higher than a child of seven and as fragile as she was fair.
“I was thinking we should walk together in the gardens now and then,” she replied, and this simple pleasure seemed a great delight to her.
“How long am I to be your guest?” I queried.
The mother shook her head and smiled.
“I think we shall keep you always, till you care to leave us,” she said. “At any rate, I do not think there is any immediate prospect of your going away.”
“I think I shall thrive better here than in Hell,” I affirmed. “I cannot tell whether it was rapid or slow consumption I suffered from when there.”
She gazed at me with eyes which had changed to sad sincerity.
“It was lack of all nourishment,” she declared. “It kills the strongest and the weakest off in time. After all, death is the greatest mercy when it comes, though at the time it seems the hardest pain.”
“You know something about it then?” I asked in some surprise. I had thought such a fair being would have been spared such knowledge.
She laughed.