“I know David,” she replied, and she burst into tears.
Poor little Amy! that night a son was born to her and David, and that night she died.
Perhaps had mother and I understood Amy, and cared for her more, David might have told us something of the sorrow which followed quickly on his joy. Most of the time between Amy’s death and her funeral, he spent in her room. After the funeral he went away for a week; he told neither mother nor me where he was going! we never heard how or in what part of the world he spent that week; on his return he never mentioned the subject. But his face, which on the day of Amy’s funeral was convulsed with agony, was after that short absence peaceful, and, I say it without expecting to be misunderstood, even happy.
It was about this time I really noticed what a religious man my brother was. With all his want of talent, he knew the Bible very well, and I think he was well acquainted with God. It must have been God who gave him power to act as he did now, for if ever a man truly loved a woman, he loved Amy; but he never showed his sorrow to mother and me; he never appeared before us with a gloomy brow. After a time even, his face awoke into that pathetic joy which follows the right reception of a great sorrow.
I did once see him, when he thought no one was by, dropping great tears over the baby.
“My boy, my little motherless lad,” I heard him say.
I longed to go up and comfort him; I longed to tell him that I cared for Amy now, but I did not dare. Mother, too, who had not loved her in life, could not speak of her in death. So David could only tell his sorrow to God, and God comforted and heard him, and the baby grew, healthy, handsome, strong, worthy in his beauty and his strength of the proudest Morgan of the race, and David loved him; but, alas! the little lad was blind.