"No, Arthur, indeed I can not; he will think I have forgotten all he said to me the last time I saw him, and, indeed, I have not—but I—I do not know what is the matter with me to-day."
And, in spite of all her efforts to restrain them, the tears would burst forth afresh; and Arthur, finding all his efforts at consolation ineffectual, contented himself with putting his arm round her and kissing them away. A few minutes afterward his father appeared.
"In tears, my dear Ellen!" he said, kindly; "your mother is not worse, I hope?"
"I do not know, sir," replied the child, as well as her tears would permit; "she has been very ill just now, for her faint was longer than usual."
"Did any thing particular occasion it?"
"I think it was seeing my aunt. Mamma was very much agitated before and afterward."
"Mrs. Hamilton has arrived then! I am rejoiced to hear it," replied Mr. Myrvin, gladly. Then sitting down by Ellen, he took one of her hands in his, and said, kindly, "Something has grieved my little girl this evening; I will not ask what it is, because you may not like to tell me; but you must not imagine evils, Ellen. I know you have done, and are doing, the duty of a good, affectionate child, nursing your suffering mother, bearing with intervals of impatience, which her invalid state occasions, and giving up all your own wishes to sit quietly by her. I have not seen you, my child, but I know those who have, and this has pleased me, and, what is of much more consequence, it proves you have not forgotten all I told you of your Father in Heaven, that even a little child can try to love and serve Him."
"But have you not told me those who are good are always happy?" inquired Ellen; "then I can not be good, though indeed I try to be so, for I do not think I am happy, for I can never laugh and sing and talk as Edward does."
"You are not in such strong health as your brother, my dear little girl, and you have had many things to make you unhappy, which Edward has not. But you must try and remember that even if it please God that sometimes you should be more sorrowful than other children, He loves you notwithstanding. I am sure you have not forgotten the story of Joseph that I told you a few Sundays ago. God so loved him, as to give him the power of foretelling future events, and enabling him to do a great deal of good, but when he was taken away from his father and sold as a slave and cast into prison among cruel strangers, he could not have been very happy, Ellen. Yet still, young as he was, little more than a child in those days, and thrown among those who did not know right from wrong, he remembered all that his father had taught him, and prayed to God, and tried to love and obey Him; and God was pleased with him, and gave him grace to continue good, and at last so blessed him, as to permit him to see his dear father and darling brother again."
"But Joseph was his father's favorite child," was Ellen's sole rejoinder; and the tears which were checked in the eagerness with which she had listened, seemed again ready to burst forth. "He must have been happy when he thought of that."