He saw her face flush with pleasure as she thanked his mamma for the beautiful dressing-gown which her sister had found so mysteriously hanging under an old coat in the closet, and knew no one but dear Mrs. Seyton could have selected a print so exactly to her taste.
He saw her again, raised a little by pillows, her hands busy in forming a thread-case from the bits of silk and leather sorted so neatly in a basket before her.
He heard her as she sang in a low, sweet voice, her favorite hymn:—
"Whene'er I take my walks abroad.
How many poor I see!
What shall I render to my God,
For all his gifts to me?
"Not more than others I deserve;
Yet God hath given me more;
For I have food while others starve,
Or beg from door to door."
He heard her, too, when, with eyes partly closed and every nerve quivering with pain, she repeated the sacred words:—
"Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."
"Take my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy."
"Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."
Maurice, though a little boy, observed all this, and one evening his mamma was delighted to hear an addition of this petition to his prayer:—
"Please, O God, when I have any lessons to learn, or any peas to shell for grandma; or, when I have the toothache, make me patient like poor, darling Kitty."
This prayer was from his heart.
He did not merely repeat the words, as too many children do, and thus give to God what he despises, only lip-service. In answer, his Heavenly Father did help him. Before they left the country for their own home, all the family noticed that he was learning to practice this virtue. Sometimes, indeed, his old peevishness and impatience would break out; but he tried to check it; and the thought of Kitty lying in pain year after year, without a murmur, helped him to do it.