CHAPTER IX.
FRIENDLY ATTENTIONS.
It was well for me that my mind was actively employed; had it been otherwise I should have continually brooded over my sorrows. As it was, when engaged with my duties in the school-room, my thoughts would wander to those two graves in the church-yard, and my tears would fall upon the book from which I was listening to a recitation from my pupils. Georgania having left home, I had only Birdie and Lewis as pupils. Much pity did those affectionate children evince for me when they could not but observe my grief. Birdie would often say,—
"Please, Miss Roscom, do not grieve so much; we all love you dearly, and will be very kind to you."
And Lewis, who could never bear to see my tears, would say,—
"I will be a little brother to you, Miss Roscom, so please don't cry any more."
To please my pupils, I endeavored to appear cheerful; but truly the heart knoweth its own bitterness. One thought, however, afforded me some consolation, and that was, that I was obeying my mother's dying injunc
tion, by striving to do my duty in the position in which I was placed. As days and months passed away, I, in some measure, regained my usual cheerfulness, although I was nowise inclined to forget my mother.
A year had now passed since I saw her laid in the grave. I often visited her resting-place, and there I renewed my resolve to follow her precepts; and many a time, kneeling by her grave did I implore wisdom from on high to enable me to follow the counsels I had so often received from those lips, now sealed in silence. It seemed to me, at such times, that I almost held communion with the spirit of my mother.