Harry! I wanted so much to go and shake hands with Pompey, and tell him how happy it made me to know that he was going to get out next Sunday, and that I hoped the sun would shine just as bright as ever it could, and all the flowers blossom out on purpose for him to see; and then I hoped that when his heart was so full of gladness he would feel like praying; and then I hoped no cruel, hard-hearted person would point at him and say, "That is a State Prison boy," and so make his heart all hard and wicked again, just as he was trying to be good.
And now, Harry, shake hands with me, and "make up." You know if poor Pompey hadn't got so angry, he wouldn't have been in prison; and as for Aunt Fanny, she must learn to be as polite as a French woman, and never laugh again when you burn your mouth with a "hasty plate of soup."
So the simple head-stone said. Why did my eyes fill? I never saw the little creature. I never looked in his laughing eye, or heard his merry shout, or listened for his tripping tread; I never pillowed his little head, or bore his little form, or smoothed his silky locks, or laved his dimpled limbs, or fed his cherry lips with dainty bits, or kissed his rosy cheek as he lay sleeping.
I did not see his eye grow dim; or his little hand droop powerless; or the dew of agony gather on his pale forehead; I stood not with clasped hands and suspended breath, and watched the look that comes but once, flit over his cherub face. And yet, "little Benny," my tears are falling; for, somewhere, I know there's an empty crib, a vacant chair, useless robes and toys, a desolate hearth-stone, and a weeping mother.
"Little Benny!"
It was all her full heart could utter; and it was enough. It tells the whole story.