Salome's burden

by Eleanora H. Stooke

Margaret was lying in a kind of stupor when her parents entered her bedroom, and they were careful not to disturb her. Mr. Fowler saw she was very ill, and his heart ached as he bent over her and listened to her laboured breathing. Glancing at his wife, he was astonished at the expression of her countenance, for, like everyone else, he had never thought she had cared for Margaret overmuch. But all the mother's love was alive in Mrs. Fowler at that moment, shining in her blue eyes, and illuminating her fair face with additional beauty.

Anxious days and nights followed, during which Margaret lay between life and death. Her mother constituted herself head nurse, and showed wonderful ability in that capacity. Naturally a nervous, excitable woman, it was quite wonderful how she put a check upon her feelings, and was calm, and capable, and seemingly untiring. It was nothing to Margaret, at that time, who was attending to her, for she was utterly unconscious, sometimes in a drowsy condition, sometimes murmuring distressfully, going over again all that had happened on the night of the storm, always with the impression in her mind that Gerald had been drowned.

"Who will tell mother?" she demanded again and again in an agony of grief. "She loves him so! He is her favourite."

Meanwhile Gerald had been taken to task by his father for his conduct on the night of the storm. Mr. Fowler took no steps to punish him, but he talked to him so seriously, and pointed out to him that he was responsible for his sister's illness, that Gerald was reduced to tears, and for the first time in his life, on seeking his mother's support and sympathy, he found both lacking.

"The blame is all yours," she told him gravely. "What your father has said to you is perfectly true."

"Oh, mother, don't you think Margaret will get well again?" he asked with quivering lips, for beneath a veneer of selfishness, he owned an affectionate heart, and he was really much attached to his sister.

"Only God knows that," was the solemn reply.

"That's what Salome Petherick says," he remarked tearfully. "She was here inquiring for Margaret at the back door this morning. She comes every day, and she said all I could do was to pray."

"She was right, Gerald; your sister is in God's hands. The doctor can do nothing for her—he has acknowledged that; but oh, my son, pray for her! Pray for her!"

The little boy was greatly impressed by the solemnity of his mother's tone, and impetuously flinging his arms around her neck, he assured her, he would be a better boy for the future, and that he would pray to God to make his sister well. He was having a holiday from lessons, for Miss Conway was assisting Mrs. Fowler and Ross with the nursing, and so he spent most of his time with his father, from whom he had begged and obtained forgiveness for his past misbehaviour.