Alice took it eagerly. It was the flyleaf of her pocket prayer-book, and on it was picked with a pin the sentence:
“Say something to me, beloved mother.”
Alice asked for a pencil, and wrote:
“To-morrow I will write, dear child.” And then the pencil dropped from her hand. “Milly, when you take her supper up, give her that,” she said, and closed her eyes from exhaustion.
CHAPTER XXII.
MARRIAGE.
Take her, and be faithful still,
And may the marriage vow
Be sacred kept in after years,
And fondly breathed as now.
—Old Song.