Claude hastened, with good tact, to change the subject. When he told her of his father’s sad death and of his mother’s perpetual sorrow, then even Meta felt that something had suddenly grown up in their hearts to draw them together in friendship.
We will be brother and sister, she thought; but, alas! he will go, and I shall see him never more again.
After this, though Meta still played, sung, and read to her patient as before, patient and nurse talked more together.
Meta told Claude of her early life, and Claude exchanged confidences.
“I would dearly like to see your great lady mother,” said Meta one day, about two weeks after their first earnest conversation.
“You may one day,” said Claude, thoughtfully.
“What? she may come here?—here in your ship? Is she very, very proud? She might not deign to speak to a sailor’s daughter,” she added.
“Oh yes, dear Meta,” exclaimed Claude, with enthusiasm; “she would speak to you. She would thank you—she would bless you for having saved the life of her only son.”
“My aunts did that; not I,” said innocent Meta.
“No, Meta, no; but you, and you alone, saved my worthless life—worthless to all but my mother.”