“Franky brought me at my earnest request. Now trust in me, dear mother, trust in your faithful child.”
“If ever I be driven to lay the burden of my grief upon any human heart, Margaret, it must be on yours—only on yours! for little Margaret, in my life, I have loved many and worshiped one, but I fully trust only you.”
“Trust me ever, mother! trust me fully, trust me even unto death; for I would be faithful unto death,” said the maiden, earnestly, fervently, solemnly.
“I know it, and I do trust you perfectly. Yet not now, not just now, need I shift this weight from my heart to yours—’tis enough that one living heart should bear that burthen at a time. I may leave it to you as a legacy, my Margaret.”
“A legacy—a legacy—oh! mother, what mean you?” inquired the maiden, as the sudden paleness of a deadly terror overspread her sweet face.
“Nothing, nothing, my dove, that should alarm you. It is the order of nature, is it not, that parents should die before their children? But who talks of dying now? Your soft touches, my child, have given me new life and strength. Lend me your arm; I will retire.”
“Let me sleep with you to-night, dear mother,” pleaded the maiden, from whose earnest face the paleness of fear had not yet vanished.
An affectionate pressure of the hand was her only answer. And Margaret assisted Mrs. Helmstedt to gain her chamber. That night, in her prayers, Margaret earnestly thanked God that she had been led to come home so opportunely to her lonely mother’s help.
And from that night the close union between the mother and daughter seemed even more firmly cemented.
The next day Mr. Helmstedt returned. He had spent the night at Heathville, and called in the morning at Buzzard’s Bluff for Margaret, and hearing that she had grown anxious upon account of her mother left alone on the island, and had returned, he simply approved the step and dropped the subject.