“Hovering constantly over and around her was brother John, doing everything so clumsily and yet so kindly, that Margaret did hot send him from her until the day was closing. Then as I came back to her after a short absence, during which I had gone with Bell and Jessie to the Congress Spring, she said to him softly:
“‘Now leave me with Dora.’
“He obeyed silently, and I fancied there was a flush upon his cheek as he closed the door upon us. All thought of that, however, was forgotten in Margaret’s question:
“‘Dora, are you engaged?’
“How I started, standing upon my feet, so that from the window I saw Dr. West leaning against a tree, and talking to Jessie, who sat with Bell upon the piazza. I thought she referred to him, and I answered her no, wondering the while if it was a falsehood I told her.
“‘I am glad,’ she said, reaching for my hand. ‘When I heard he was at his sister’s in Morrisville, I thought it might end in an engagement, particularly as he admired you so much when he visited us last summer.’
“I knew now that she was talking of Lieutenant Reed, and that no suspicion of my love for Dr. West had ever crossed her mind, and so I listened, while she continued:
“‘I told you last night that you must be my children’s mother, and you promised that you would. Tell me so again, Dora. Say that no one else shall come between you, and if, in after years, children of your own shall climb your lap, and cling about your neck, love mine still for your dead sister’s sake. Promise, Dora.’
“For an instant there flashed upon my mind a thought, the reality of which would prove a living death, and in that interval I felt all the sickening anguish which would surely come upon me were I to take her place in everything. But she did not mean that. She could not doom me to such a fate, and so when she said to me again faintly, oh! so faintly, while the perspiration stood on her white lips, and her cold hand clasped mine pleadingly, ‘Promise, Dora, to be my children’s mother.’
“I answered, ‘Yes, I will care for and be to them a mother.’