“Oh, my child, my child! if I should lose you, what should I do?”
“Hester! my love!” said her husband, in a tone of tender remonstrance, “what do you mean?”
“I did not think you would hear me, love; but I thank you. What did I mean? Not exactly what I said; for God knows, I would strive to part willingly with whatever he might see fit to take away. But, oh, Edward! what a struggle it would be! and how near it comes to us! How many mothers are now parting from their children!”
“God’s will be done!” cried Hope, starting up, and standing over his babe.
“Are you sure, Edward may we feel quite certain that we have done rightly by our boy in keeping him here?”
“I am satisfied, my love.”
“Then I am prepared. How still he is now! How like death it looks!”
“What, that warm, breathing sleep! No more like death than his laugh is like sin.”
And Hope looked about him for pencil and paper, and hastily sketched his boy in all the beauty of repose, before he went forth again among the sick and wretched. It was very like; and Hester placed it before her as she plied her needle, all that long solitary evening.