"Yes, mamma."
"Come to me, dear."
Leaving the precious book behind me, I crossed the room to the sofa. My mother raised herself. Holding me to her with one hand, she pushed with the other the hair from my face and gazed into it. That my face was very much like hers, I knew. It had been said a hundred times in my hearing that I had her dark-blue eyes and her soft brown hair and her well-carved features.
"My pretty boy," she said caressingly, "I am so sorry! I fear you are disappointed. I think we might have had them. You were always promised a birthday party, you know, when you should be seven years old."
There had been some discussion about it. My mother thought the little boys and girls might come; but papa and Leah said, "No—it would fatigue her."
"I don't mind a bit, mamma," I answered. "I have my book, and it is so pretty. They can come next year, you know, when you are well again."
She sighed deeply. Getting up from the sofa, she took up two books that were on the stand behind her, and sat down again. Early in the spring some illness had seized her that I did not understand. She ought to have been well again by this time, but was not so. She left her room and came downstairs, and saw friends when they called: but instead of growing stronger she grew weaker.
"She was never robust, and it has been too much for her," I overheard Leah say to one of the other servants, in allusion to the illness.
"What if I should not be here at your next birthday, Charley?" she asked sadly, holding me to her side as she sat.
"But where should you be, mamma?"