The girl glided softly into the room, and stood over the bed where her mother was lying.
"Mother, I've come home," said she, gently.
The poor, frail creature in the bed seemed to be in one of those helpless hours of life's voyage, when all its waves and billows are breaking over the soul; and while the little new-comer was blindly rooting and striving at her breast, she had gathered the worn counterpane over her face, and the bed was shaken by her sobbings.
"Mother! mother! mother!" said the child, softly touching her.
"Go away! go away, child! Oh, I wish I had never been born! I wish you had never been born, nor Teddy, nor the baby! It's all nothing but trouble and sorrow! Fanny, don't you ever marry! Mind what I tell you!"
The child stood frightened by the bedside, while Tiff had softly deposited a handful of pine-wood near the fireplace, had taken off the porringer, and was busily stirring and concocting something in an old cracked china mug. As he stirred, a strain of indignation seemed to cross his generally tranquil mind, for he often gave short sniffs and grunts, indicative of extreme disgust, and muttered to himself,—
"Dis yer comes of quality marrying these yer poor white folks! Never had no 'pinion on it, no way! Ah! do hear the poor lamb now! 'nough to break one's heart!"
By this time, the stirring and flavoring being finished to his taste, he came to the side of the bed, and began, in a coaxing tone,—
"Come, now, Miss Sue, come! You's all worn out! No wonder! dat ar great fellow tugging at you! Bless his dear little soul, he's gaining half a pound a week! Nough to pull down his ma entirely! Come, now; take a little sup of this—just a little sup! Warm you up, and put a bit of life in you; and den I 'spects to fry you a morsel of der chicken, 'cause a boy like dis yer can't be nursed on slops, dat I knows! Dere, dere, honey!" said he, gently removing the babe, and passing his arm under the pillow. "I's drefful strong in the back. My arm is long and strong, and I'll raise you up just as easy! Take a good sup on it, now, and wash dese troubles down. I reckon the good man above is looking down on us all, and bring us all round right, some time."
The invalid, who seemed exhausted by the burst of feeling to which she had been giving way, mechanically obeyed a voice to which she had always been accustomed, and drank eagerly, as if with feverish thirst; and when she had done, she suddenly threw her arms around the neck of her strange attendant.