She smiled because a little one—a tiny, sickly little girl—had come up to the bed and patted her cheek and said: “Little mother—little mother!”
There were four other children in the room, and they sat around in all the solemn, awe-stricken sorrow of death, seen for the first time.
Then a man in an invalid chair, helpless and with a broken spine, spoke, as if thinking aloud:
“She's all the mother the little 'uns ever had, Bishop—'pears like it's cruel for God to take her from them.”
“God's cruelty is our crown,” said the old man—“we'll understand it by and by.”
Then the beautiful woman who had come over the mountain arose from the seat by the fireside, and came to the bed. She took the little one in her arms and petted and soothed her.
The child looked at her timidly in childish astonishment. She was not used to such a beautiful woman holding her—so proud and fine—from a world that she knew was not her world.
“May I give you some nourishment now, Maggie?”
The girl shook her head.
“No—no—Miss Alice,” and then she smiled so brightly and cheerfully that the little one in Alice Westmore's arms clapped her hands and laughed: “Little mother—be up, well, to-morrow.”