“I’m not sure,” answered Jessica. “Mother’s strokes were sharp and soon over, but the smart lasted a long while. Maybe the stroke is now over, but perhaps the smart will last a little while. God knows.”
“Yes,” said Jane, the tears standing in her eyes, “and God knows what is best for papa and us. We’ve known that a long time, but now we must believe it with our hearts.”
“Believing is a deal harder than knowing,” remarked Winny, with a look wonderfully like her father’s, and the three children were silent again, their minds full of thought, while they listened for the minister’s return to his home.
CHAPTER III.
JESSICA’S MOTHER.
They were heavy steps which the three listening children heard at last in the hall below, and upon the staircase the sounds of carrying a helpless burden up the stairs, and Jane and Winny pressed closer to Jessica, who looked from one to the other with an air of tender encouragement. As the sounds drew near, they crept by one impulse to the door, and opening it a little way they saw their father’s face as he was carried past them, pale but peaceful, with the eyelids closed as if he were in a deep sleep. Jessica’s quick eyes detected Daniel standing in the darkness at the end of the passage, and as soon as the sad procession had passed into the minister’s chamber, and the door was shut, she darted out and led him eagerly to the study.
“Oh, Standring!” cried Jane and Winny in one breath, “tell us everything about papa.”
“Come, come, you needn’t be frightened, my little ladies,” answered Daniel soothingly. “Please God, your papa will be all right again in a week or two. The doctors say he’s been studying too much to make his grand sermons, and he hasn’t given his brain rest enough. But he’ll come all right again by and by, or I don’t know whatever will become of the chapel.”
“He won’t die?” murmured Jane, with quivering lips.