“Then you have not forgotten your poor, dear mother?”
“No; for I saw her placed in a beautiful box of white wood, and my grandmother led me up to her to kiss her and say good-by. She was very white and very stiff, and every evening my aunt made me pray God that she might go to him in Heaven and be warm. Do you think that she is there now?”
“I hope so, my child; but you must always pray. It shows your mother that you love her.”
“I am going to say my prayers,” answered the boy. “I forgot them to-night. But I can’t say them all alone, for I always forget something. Little Marie must help me.”
“Yes, my Pierre, I will help you,” said the young girl. “Come and kneel down in my lap.”
The child knelt down on the girl’s skirt. He clasped his little hands and began to say his prayers, at first with great care and earnestness, for he knew the beginning very well, then slowly and with more hesitation, and finally repeating word by word after Marie, when he came to that place in his prayer where sleep overtook him so invariably that he had never been able to learn the end. This time again the effort of close attention and the monotony of his own accent produced their wonted effect. He pronounced the last syllables with great difficulty, and only after they were thrice repeated.
His head grew heavy and fell on Marie’s breast; his hands unclasped, divided, and fell open on his knees. By the light of the camp-fire, Germain watched his little darling hushed at the heart of the young girl, who, as she held him in her arms and warmed his fair hair with her sweet breath, had herself fallen into a holy reverie, and prayed in quiet for the soul of Catherine.
Germain was touched. He tried to express to little Marie the grateful esteem which he felt for her, but he could find no fitting words.
He approached her to kiss his son, whom she held close to her breast, and he could scarcely raise his lips from little Pierre’s brow.
“You kiss too hard,” said Marie, gently pushing away the husbandman’s head. “You will wake him. Let me put him back to bed, for the boy has left us already for dreams of paradise.”