“Are you not a little surprised, mother, at this sudden change? Are you not a little curious to know by what means poverty has folded her wings and flown away from us?” My mother was silent for nearly a full moment, then she said slowly:
“I know you have a story to tell me whenever I am ready to hear it. But I am too weak to listen to it to-night. Weakness keeps us from being very curious, Rose. I don’t think, even in health, I was ever inordinately curious about anything. I was always able to take things on trust from those I loved. I can take riches on trust for the present, Rose.”
“You are just the sweetest mother in the world,” I said, kissing her on her forehead.
Just then the peal of the front-door bell penetrated into my mother’s room. I started back at the sound.
“What is the matter, dear?” she asked. “Did that bell startle you?”
“It did, mother, because—because I know who has come.”
“Some friend of yours, darling?”
“Yes, a—a friend of mine. I must go down-stairs to see him. Mother, give me your two hands for a moment.”
She gave them without a word. I bent low, and placed my mother’s hands on my head.
“Mother, say these words over me, ‘God bless you, Rosamund; your mother’s God bless you!’”