"What is it, Maggie darling?" I asked, stroking her long, fair hair with my hand.
"Oh, May," she sobbed, "if only we could be together; if only I had not to go away and leave you. I counted the days this morning on the almanack, and there are only nineteen more."
"Poor little Maggie!" I said. "What shall I do without you?"
"And what shall I do without you, May?" she said. "My aunts are very kind, but they are not like you; you are just like a mother to me. I shall never be a good girl, May, when I haven't you to talk to me, and when I can't tell you all my troubles."
"But you can tell Jesus, Maggie," I said, "just as you have always told me, and He will help you and comfort you far, far better than I could do."
"Yes, May," she said, putting up her face to be kissed, "I will tell Him every day; I promise you that I will."
"And then you can write to me, Maggie," I said. "Look here what I have bought for you. I had meant to have kept it till the last day, but perhaps I had better give it to you now."
I went to a drawer and brought out a neat little desk filled with paper, envelopes, pens, stamps, and everything necessary for letter-writing.
Maggie was charmed with it, and was quite as merry as she had been sad before, and began to plan at once how many letters she would write me every week, and what she would say in them. She said she should tell me everything, even what time she got up every morning and went to bed every night.
Dear little Maggie! How well I can picture her to myself as she looked on that memorable evening in my life, on which I had refused to be Claude Ellis's wife.