"But I want her," Mrs. Vincent said. "I want her and her father," she moaned. "I can't die without seeing them again."
"You are making too much of the illness," Hannah answered, anxiously. "People have more of it before they die."
"Tell Towsey to send for Margaret," Mrs. Vincent said, as if her mind were detaching itself from Hannah's argument.
"She shall not cross the doorstep," Hannah said; "and, if you were dying, it would be for your salvation's sake that I would still say it; for one must have fear of God as well as love of God. Let us go on with the reading, mother."
"I can't listen; I want Margaret and her father. There is the sea between him and me, but you can send for Margaret."
"You are tired and had better sleep a little," Hannah said for answer, and, for all her firmness, her voice was kind and even gentle, as though she were striving to save a soul at bitter cost to her own heart. No answer came to her last words, and five minutes went by; they seemed like hours to Margaret; then Hannah spoke again, and her voice was different—there was something like fear in it.
"Mother," she asked, "mother, why do you look round so; do you see anything?"
"I'm looking for Margaret," the faint voice said.
"You'd better try to sleep; you'll be stronger if you sleep a little." But for answer there was only a little moaning whisper that Margaret's heart told her was her own name, and in agony she rocked to and fro and clung to her mother's skirt hung against the wall, and kissed it, and the tears came into her eyes and scalded them.
"I will go and get you a cup of arrow-root," she heard Hannah say; "it is past midnight, and time that you had nourishment." She pushed back the chair on which she had been sitting and came out of the room and, passing the door of the cupboard in which her sister was hiding, went down-stairs. Then Margaret slipped softly into her mother's room and knelt by the bedside.