She bent over me, and drew me into her arms, against her bosom.
"If you are not fit to live, my darling, you are not fit to die," she said gently. "I can better part with Lily, for she is pure yet as when God gave her to me. I have seen your sin and your suffering, and I have known your repentance would come."
"Oh, it has, it has! Mother, how can I bear it? Will she go home to God, and tell Him I have hated her?"
"Do you think she could tell Him any thing which He does not know? But Lily has never found out what hate means. She has always loved you, and she does not know but that all the world loves her. The pain which your sin has caused has not rested on Lily,—thank God for that."
"But I might have made her happier,—I might have been good to her,—and now, perhaps I shall never have any little sister any more in all the world."
Just then the child awoke, and put out her frail little hands, with a low, sweet call I was destined to listen for in vain through all the empty, after years. I ran to her, and took her in my arms. She saw the tears upon my face, and touched them with her mites of fingers.
"Naughty Nan," she said, in fond reproach, "naughty Nan, to cry,—make Lily cry too."
And then I wiped away my tears, and tried to be cheerful; but, oh, how heavy my heart was! and, mourn as I would, I could not bring back the dead months and days wherein I might have loved my little sister, and had hated her instead.
What else?