"What is it, my child?" asked the lady.
"I guess, if I'd had a mother, she'd kiss me, like that,—don't you?"
"Shall I kiss you, Dolly?" asked Mrs. Bradford, with tearful eyes.
"Could you?" said Dolly, with a brightening look.
Warm from the loving mother's heart came the motherly kiss, which Dolly had never known before; and with a long, satisfied sigh, she again closed her eyes.
Then came the sweet voices of the children and their teacher, hymn after hymn of infant praise floating in, as it seemed, on that soft, shimmering sunshine, and filling the little room with music. Dolly lay still, and they could not tell whether she were listening or not. Presently, she opened her eyes again, started, and murmured,—
"Oh! I don't want to go in the Ice Glen; it's dark and cold,"—then, more gently, "well, never mind; Jesus will take care of me, I guess,—yes, Jesus will. He'll let me—be an angel—to praise Him—day—and—night. He does—care—for me."
Slowly, slowly the words dropped from her lips; then came one or two fluttering sighs; and a little ransomed soul, thirsting for the water of life, had flown away, and was safe within the bosom of Him who has said, "Suffer little children to come unto me." The little, weary, homesick child had gone home to the love that never fails, to the care that never tires.
Lem came over to the Lake House, the next day, carrying one of Dolly's flower-pots on each arm; and, setting them down before Maggie and Bessie, who were on the piazza with Uncle Ruthven and Aunt Bessie, drew his sleeve across his eyes, and said,—
"She telled me I was to bring 'em to you, and say, maybe they'd go a little bit to make up for the sp'ilin' of your gardens, and maybe, when the flowers was out, they'd do to go to the show. That was what she was settin' so much by 'em for, when she lay a dyin'."