Then the mother, glancing at the dial-plate of a tall old-fashioned clock, ticking in a corner, said, "Marian, my child, it is growing late, and you will want to be up betimes in the morning."
The little girl, heaving a sigh, reluctantly bade them good-night and retired.
Kenneth looked after her.
"What a sweet creature she is! what a lovely woman a few years will make of her," he said; but catching the expression of the mother's countenance, he ended abruptly, with almost a groan.
She had dropped her knitting in her lap, her face had grown very pale, her lips quivered, and there was a look of anguish in her eyes.
Kenneth longed to comfort her, but could find no words. He brought a glass of water and held it to her lips.
She swallowed a mouthful, and as he set the glass down on a stand by her side, took up her work again with a slight sigh. The spasm of pain seemed to have passed, and her face resumed its accustomed expression of patient endurance.
He stood gazing down on her, his eyes full of a wistful tenderness.
"Mother," he said, bending over her and speaking in a voice scarce raised above a whisper, "our God is very good, very merciful, surely He will hear our united prayers that it—that fearful curse—may never light on her."
"His will be done with me and mine," she answered low and tremulously. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him."