"I will be her mother, and make up to her as well as I can for what she has lost, poor dear," said she to herself.
And then she began to wonder what Helen's mother had been like, and to make an imaginary character of her, full of beauty and love and all manner of perfections. And the young Helen was to be a copy of her mother. There was a mysterious, and yet, in some ways of looking at it, a natural instinct in all this, perhaps. That which is mysterious I do not, of course, pretend to explain; but it was natural, surely, for Sarah to wish for an object on which to expend a store of love within, which had hitherto lain dormant because there had been no demand for it.
Helen was not many years younger now than her (Sarah's) little bud of mortality would have been had it pleased God to spare it to her. And, in her foolish thoughts, it was as if that little bud was coming back to her at last, in another form, and expanded into a lovely flower.
And then, from these vagaries of imagination, Sarah's more sober thoughts came back again to legitimate home; and, day after day, as she looked at her husband's patient countenance, and heard his quiet, uncomplaining words, and reflected how good he had been to her all those past years, and given her so much more, to say the least of it, than she had given him, she seemed to herself to be waking up from some distressing if not hideous dream, till she could not contain her self-reproach on the one hand, and her thankfulness on the other.
And one evening, when they were by themselves in John's gloomy-looking study, whither they had repaired after a hard day's work in putting the finishing strokes to their preparations, poor Sarah fairly gave way, and, throwing her arms around John's neck, and hiding her face on his breast, she sobbed out her penitent confession of shortcomings and her new-found love.
"I do love you now, John, dear, dearest husband. I have never loved you as I ought to have done, till now. But I love you now, dear, good, good John!"
Yes, it had come at last. John had never given up hoping for it; and now, after so long a time, it had come to him. His wife loved him.
Happy John Tincroft!
