"My dear children, will you always love each other as you do now? Will you always be his sister Phebe, and never take away the affection that makes him so happy? I shall not always be with with you, my children; but before I leave you, promise me, Phebe, that you will never forsake him, and I will trust you, young as you are. The time will come when both of you will pass beyond these years of childhood, and great changes may come to you; there will be separations, and other homes where it may be you will live apart. But, Phebe, he is your brother; remember I have given him to you. It is a sacred trust, but you understand it. Will it be kept safe and firm when he has no mother to lean upon, and no hand but yours to attend to his wants? Phebe, I love you, and thank God every day that he sent the lonely 'mariner' to our home, and for the sake of that love will you be true to my dear boy?"
"I could never live without Willie," and she threw her arms passionately around the neck of the crippled boy. "I will never leave him Mother; he couldn't do without me, could you Willie?" The boy drew her more closely to him but could not speak, for his heart was full of his mother's sad words. He had noticed that her cheek had paled with the fading of the summer flowers; that her step had grown more feeble and her kiss more tender as she smoothed his pillow at night and whispered "God will take care of you my dear, dear boy." And now as he looked into the pale face and saw the tear-drops glisten on her drooping lashes a fearful foreboding stole over him, and placing an arm about her neck he sobbed:
"Mother, do not talk of leaving me! What could your helpless boy do without you? I must always creep about in the dust for the thoughtless and cruel to point at, and there is nothing in the future to hope for or look forward to. O Mother! It is dreadful to be a cripple with no prospect of being any body or doing any good to others; only a poor, helpless boy for every passer-by to pity!"
"Please do not Willie; it breaks my heart! Remember what God has said, 'the Lord thy God is a merciful God, He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.' I have many times laid you, all helpless as you are, as a cheerful testimony of my poor trembling faith at His feet, and somehow, Willie, I have felt that he has accepted my precious gift, and that my boy will be ever under his especial care and love. Look up, there is sunshine on the other side of the clouds, and its bright beams will gild your darkness if you will permit them to do so." The slumbering fountain of the daughter's love was stirred at the sight before her and bowing her head she wept!
"Mother," she said at last with much emotion; "have you forgotten that I am his sister? Can you not leave him to my care? I will never forsake him, and all that I can do to make his life pleasanter I will gladly do! Did you forget me Mother?"
"Forget you Fanny? You were my first born—my all for many years! Together we have worked and talked, but, my daughter, you are older and sterner by nature than my poor helpless one. He wants companionship, sympathy in his little trials that must ever be peculiar to himself, and no one can do this as well as one who has suffered and been lonely as he will always be. No Fanny, you will of course be kind to him and your reward will be sure."
Phebe had been an inmate of the new home for more than three years. Happy years they had been, notwithstanding the many trials she had been obliged to encounter. Her foster-parents were always kind, and it was there her heart had first learned the luxury of loving and being loved. How true had been the promise to her "when thy father and thy mother forsake thee then the Lord will take thee up!" He had taken her and she was being fitted by his providences for the life that was before her. A dark shadow was creeping over her path with its sombre forebodings, and young as she was her soul was chilled by it. She had not noticed it before, and it was hard to realize even now that it was so distinctly brought before her. Of one thing, however, she was sure. Willie was suffering and her little heart poured itself out in words of tenderness and sympathy.
It was a happy day when Mr. Evans returned from his long voyage and introduced Rover to his new master. The shadows which had been lingering over the home circle for two long days suddenly vanished. Then came the long rides, for as the father had said, "the wagon was ample for the two," and Rover was able and willing.
But in the pleasant sitting-room that looked out upon the fading lawn where the leaves were falling from the crimson maples there were sad talks about a coming separation, and faint, wistful looks into the far-off future. There were smiles and caresses that fell into "life's eventide" like sunbeams darting through the western clouds as night approaches. The wife and mother knew that her days were numbered, and when the winter storms came and mantled the hillside and spread a pall over the lonely grave beyond the garden where the cold marble stood, and the winds mingled their sighs with the sobs and moans of bereaved ones, the chamber of the slumbering one was entered and the loving mother slept in a dreamless sleep.
A pall of gloom settled down on the inmates of this once cheerful home! The cord that had so long bound them all together was broken. What would the future present to each? Where the wisdom to choose; the firmness and strength to battle and maintain?