"I am greatly surprised," I answered; "are you better, Mummy?" I bent over her, calling her by the old childish, very childish name. She laid her thin hand on mine, her hand was hot, but her face looked, with the colour in her cheeks, and her eyes so feverishly bright, more beautiful than I had ever seen it. I sat down near her.
"You don't know how nice Nurse Marion has been," she said. "When she found I really wished to get up, she did not oppose me, and she dressed me so carefully, and I am not the least bit tired. I longed to come into the drawing-room, I seem to have quite got over that attack; you need not be anxious, West."
"Very well, I won't be anxious," I answered; "I will sit close to you here and read to you if you will let me."
"I should love to hear you, darling. Read Whittier's poem, 'My Psalm.' Some of the lines have been ringing in my head all day, and I always like the sort of cadence in your voice when you read poetry aloud."
I knew Whittier's "Psalm" well, and without troubling to get the book, I began to repeat the well-known words—
"I mourn no more my vanished years:
Beneath a tender rain,
An April rain of smiles and tears,
My heart is young again.
The west-winds blow, and singing low,