"Mamma, I will try to be perfectly submissive to his will, even if it is to take you away from me; but oh, I must pray, pray, pray as hard as I can that it may please him to spare your dear life and let me keep my mother at least till I am grown to be a man. It won't be wrong, mamma?"
"No, my darling boy, I think not—if with it all you can truly, from your heart, say, 'thy will, not mine, be done.'"
When Captain Raymond followed his wife and little ones to Ion, he found there a distressed household, anxious and sorely troubled over the suffering and danger of the dearly beloved mother and mistress. Violet met him on the veranda, her cheeks pale and showing traces of tears, her eyes full of them.
"My darling!" he exclaimed in surprise and alarm, "what is the matter?"
He clasped her in his arms as he spoke, and dropping her head upon his shoulder, she sobbed out the story of her mother's suffering and the trial that awaited her on the morrow.
His grief and concern were scarcely less than her own, but he tried to speak words of comfort to both her and the others to whom the loved invalid was so inexpressibly dear. To the beloved invalid also when, like the rest, he was accorded a short interview.
Yet he found to his admiring surprise that she seemed in small need of such service—so calm, so peaceful, so entirely ready for any event was she.
Finding his presence apparently a source of strength and consolation, not only to his young wife, but to all the members of the stricken household, he remained till after tea, but then returned home for the night, principally for Lulu's sake; not being willing to leave the child alone, or nearly so, in that great house.