“Yes, darling. I always like to hear your thoughts.”
“I was just thinking that you didn’t seem to care so very much.”
“What about?” asked his mother.
“Oh, about all those dreadful things—about dear little Mildred having died, and about my being left all by myself.”
It was not just directly that Mrs. Vivyan was able to answer, and then she said:
“When you are older, darling, you will find out that it is not always the people who talk and cry most, who feel things most; and that there is such a thing as saying ‘Thy will be done,’ and of not giving way to all our feelings for the sake of others.”
“Ah, yes; that is what I ought to do,” said Arthur with a deep sigh.
“Arthur, dear,” said Mrs. Vivyan presently, looking straight into the fire, and closing her hands very tightly, “don’t ever think I do not care or feel. Oh, you never can know how much I have felt! You know nothing about the hungry feeling in my heart when I think of my darling, darling little baby, whom God is taking care of now; and how, when I see the little bed she used to lie on, and her little frocks and shoes, I feel something biting in my heart, and as if I must have her in my arms again. And about you, my own precious boy, God knows how I feel, as I never could express to you; but I can tell Him, and I do.”
And Arthur’s mother buried her face again in her hands, and burst into an agony of weeping. He had never seen her cry like that before, and it was something quite new to him to see his sweet, gentle mother so moved. He hardly knew what to say to her; so he rose from his sofa, and coming close up to her chair, he threw his arms with a fervent embrace around her, and said softly:
“Never mind, my own dear mother; I will try and bear it.”