Once when a little schoolfellow of mine lay sick mother taught me to pray for him and to say, 'God make Charley well, or else take him to dwell with Thee and with the angels.'
Since I had heard that my mother was ill I had added these words, after much thought, to her name in my prayers. I said them now.
There was the sound of a stifled sob behind me. Farmer Foster had come in without my hearing him. 'Bless his dear heart!' the old man said. 'The good Lord has heard his prayer.'
I jumped up from my knees.
'Has mother got quite well?' I asked eagerly.
Oh no! Farmer Foster's averted face—his wife's slow-dropping tears—Peggy's uplifted hands and pitiful, shocked look, told quite another story.
They frightened me with their silence and their tears.
'Mother!' I called loudly; 'mother!'
'Oh, little Willie!' Dame Foster said, holding out her arms, 'she cannot hear you.'
There was no need for them to tell me any more.