"It does not frighten me. Just at first I shrank from the news, but I am quite reconciled to it now. A faint idea that this might be the ending, has been running through my own mind for some days past, though I would not dwell on it sufficiently to give it a form."
"I am astonished that Mrs. Arkell should have imparted it to you!" emphatically repeated Mr. St. John. "What could she have been thinking of?"
"Oh, Mr. St. John! mamma has striven to bring us up not to fear death. What would have been the use of her lessons, had she thought I should run in terror from it when it came?"
"She ought not to have told you—she ought not to have told you!" was the continued burden of Mr. St. John's song. "You may get well yet."
"Then there is no harm done. But, with death near, would you have had me, the only one it concerns, left in ignorance to meet it, not knowing it was there? Mamma has not waited herself for death—as she has done, you know, for years—without learning a better creed than that."
Mr. St. John made no reply, and Henry went on: "I have had such a pleasant night with mamma. She read to me parts of the Revelation; and in talking of the glories which I may soon see, will you believe that I almost forgot my pain? She says how thankful she is now, that she has been enabled to train me up more carefully than many boys are trained—to think more of God."
"You are a strange boy," interrupted Sir. St. John.
"In what way am I strange?"
"To anticipate death in that tone of cool ease. Have you no regrets to leave behind you?"
"Many regrets; but they seemed to fade into insignificance last night, while mamma was talking with me. It is best that they should."