"How long?" she asked in the same low tone, glancing first at the white face on the pillow, then at him.
"Some days, I hope; and she is likely now to sleep for hours. Let me take your place."
Elsie bent over the child, listening for a moment to her breathing, then accepting his offer, followed her husband and father from the room.
Rosie, waiting and watching in the hall without, sprang to her mother's embrace with a low, joyful cry, "Mamma, mamma! oh, you've been gone so long, so long! I thought you'd never come back."
"Mamma is very glad to be with you again," Elsie said, holding her close for a moment, then resigning her to her father, she sought the others, all near at hand, and waiting eagerly for a sight of her loved face, a word from her gentle lips.
They were all longing for one of the old confidential talks, Violet, perhaps, more than the others; but it could not be now, the mother could scarcely allow herself time for a little rest, ere she must return to her station by the side of the sick bed.
But Molly was not forgotten or neglected. Elsie went to her with kind inquiries, loving cheering words and a message from Dick, whom she had seen a few days before.
Molly sat thinking it over gratefully, after her cousin had left the room.
"How kind and thoughtful for others she is! how sweet and gentle, how patient and resigned. I will try to be more like her. How truly she obeys the command 'Be pitiful, be courteous.'
"But why should one so lovely, so devoted a Christian, be visited with so sore a trial? I can see why my trials were sent. I was so proud and worldly; and they were necessary to show me my need of Jesus; but she has loved and leaned upon him since she was a little child."