Frank Mathers was so impressed with his mother's love that he silently determined never again to grieve her. "Now let me change your clothes. You might catch a severe cold and perhaps be ill for weeks after this. Do you feel ill?"
"No, mamma, I am cold, that is all."
When Frank was eating his supper that evening, his heart was full of thankfulness. "What a good mother I have," he thought, "I will never do anything contrary to her orders any more." He suddenly stopped eating. The thought of the porker struck him and he called out gently: "Mamma."
"What is it my dear?"
"A dead pig came running after me."
Mrs. Mathers looked somewhat anxiously at her son. Was his mind going out?
"They had killed a pig at a farm, and when they were gone to fetch some water, the porker jumped down and came running after me," said the little boy.
The slight shock which the mother had received, had sufficed to flush her cheek.
There was something strange in that bright tint on her face, it glowed with a strange light. Her eye had a kind, but far away glance; an almost divine expression. It was full of tenderness and melancholy. She seemed to belong to some other world then; her whole soul seemed to shine in that sweet face. This was how she looked as she gazed upon her son that evening, while he was finishing his supper, seemingly not at all astonished at his mother's silence. He had grown accustomed to these moments of pensiveness on his mother's part. Of late, she often fell into a strange reverie, and little Frank was yet too young to understand these symptoms always followed by a short, hollow cough. His mother was attacked with phthisis.