“No, Miss Blyth, I don’t feel better; I’m not able to say just what ails me, or where or what my complaint is. But I’m wearing away, slowly and surely, and at times I feel such a sinking and a fainting, that I sit waiting and waiting, thinking every moment will be my last.”
“Yes, that’s just it. I don’t believe in ‘thinking and waiting’ of that kind. When you feel a sinking and a fainting, you should tell Mary to get you a little beef-tea, or a cup of tea, to give you a rising; and make up your mind that you aren’t going to die yet, because you’re wanted here.”
“Nay, I don’t know about that,” said the despondent soul, always entertaining hard thoughts about herself. “I’m not wanted here. I’m such a poor helpless invalid that I’m no use to anybody.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Mary Morris you just come here. Now, Mrs. Morris, just tell her, will you, that she doesn’t want you, and that you are no use to her!”
Mrs. Morris looked at the speaker, and then into her daughter’s loving and gentle face, down which the tears were quietly descending, and said, as she put her arms around her neck,—
“No. God bless her, I can’t say that, for I know she loves her mother.”
Mary returned the embrace warmly, saying,—
“Love you? Aye, that I do, next to my God.”
“Why, bless my life, Mrs. Morris, there are folks in the world that haven’t got so much as a cat or a dog to wag their tails when they see ’em; and you’ve got such a wealth of tenderness as there is in this girl’s heart to call your own. When did Bob and Dick come to see you last?”