"Dear mamma," exclaimed Walter, in a tone of delight, "you are looking so much better and brighter this morning. I was really troubled about you last night lest you were going to be ill; you were so pale, and grandpa looked so worried."
"Grandpa is always easily frightened about mamma if she shows the slightest indication of illness," said Rosie; "as indeed we all are, because she is so dear and precious; our very greatest earthly treasure.
"Mamma dearest, I am so rejoiced that you are not really sick!" she added, dropping on her knees beside her mother's chair, clasping her arms about her, and kissing her again and again with ardent affection.
"I, too," Walter said, taking his station on her other side, putting an arm round her neck, and pressing his lips to her cheek.
She returned their caresses with words of mother love, tears shining in her eyes at the thought that this might prove almost her last opportunity.
"What do you think, Rosie?" laughed Walter. "Mamma called me her baby boy last night; me—a great fellow of eleven. I think you must be her baby girl."
But Rosie made no reply. She was gazing earnestly into her mother's face. "Mamma dear," she said anxiously, "you are not well! you are suffering! Oh, what is it ails you?"
"I am in some pain, daughter," Elsie answered, in a cheerful tone; "but Cousin Arthur hopes to be able to relieve it in a day or two."
"Oh, I am glad to hear that!" Rosie exclaimed, with a sigh of relief. "Dearest mamma, I do not know how I could ever bear to have you very ill."
"Should that trial ever come to you, daughter dear, look to God for strength to endure it," her mother said in sweetly solemn accents, as she gently smoothed Rosie's hair with her soft white hand and gazed lovingly into her eyes. "Do not be troubled about the future, but trust his gracious promise: 'As thy days, so shall thy strength be!' Many and many a time has it been fulfilled to me and to all who have put their trust in him?"