The mother looked sadly up in her daughter’s fair face as she answered, “Paul Burton; with manly form, blue eyes, and hair the color of your admirer’s. Nettie, I am so glad you had sense enough to come home, as it is my conjecture that this young man is the son of him I have told you of. God grant it may not be!” said the mother fervently. “I do not wish my child to be deceived as I have been.”
“Your father and I lived very happy through the years of our married life. No shadows came to mar the horizon of our union until he became bankrupt through a person we supposed our friend. Poor soul, like many others before him he could not stand the crash in his financial affairs, and soon after died. It was a sad blow to me as I loved him fully as well as I ever did Paul Burton, the baronet’s son.”
“Poor mamma!” exclaimed Nettie passionately. “God must have willed it to be so. I love this strange young man and it was very hard for me to come home and leave him whom I loved so fondly, but my English pride bade me come home.”
“And I hope God will deal justly by us all. We must trust to Providence and wait and see what time will bring in the future.”
“Oh mamma dear, I cannot believe Paul is false. Oh, no, no, it cannot be!” exclaimed Nettie passionately.
“May God be merciful to me.”
“My child. God doeth all things. We can trust to Providence and all yet may be well. This is a world of trouble and sorrow to us poor mortals and what falls to our lot we must endure patiently, for what is to be will be, in spite of all human aid. I sincerely hope for the happiness of my only child,” said the mother, pressing Nettie fondly to her breast.
Here I will leave them bemoaning their fate, and return to Paul, who, on returning home, found his mother very ill. She gradually grew worse day by day. All medical skill was of no avail and they could not restore her to ordinary health. Time passed drearily at that once pleasant home. Paul, sad hearted, went about the house as one in a dream, never speaking to any one except to give orders to servants and inquire about his mother, whom he loved more fondly than ever. He knew she would soon leave him, and it grieved him very much to see her sad, pale face as she would look fondly at him and say, “I will soon be at rest—free from all earthly trouble.”
She lingered through the fall and long dreary winter months, and as the buds came on the trees in the following spring she breathed her last, while lying in the arms of her affectionate son. Sad was the scene, to see the young man fondly clasp his mother to his breast while tears fell like rain, on the sad, silent face.
A few moments before she died she called for her son, and when he did not come immediately she said, “Must I die and not tell him? I ought to have done it before now. Oh, where is my boy? Will he come soon?” she asked faintly, turning her face to the wall.