"You read me like a book almost, Dick. I have been hesitating whether to say any more or no, but it is due to your goodness that I should withhold no thought from you which has relation to your sisters. Indeed, I have no wish to do it. My anxiety is on Gertrude's account. She has never been like the rest, especially to you, and never treated you as she ought to have done since that miserable visit. When I am gone it may be that she will try to prejudice the younger ones, and that they will listen to her, and then—"
Tears began to flow down the wan cheeks, and the speaker was unable to continue.
"I know all, and I have no fear. We will not trouble ourselves about 'maybes,'" returned Richard, in a cheery, hopeful tone, though he was not wholly without forebodings on the same account.
"Do not think I have made my promise to you without asking for help to enable me to keep it. That is enough for to-day. As future days pass one by one into the present, I shall seek strength for each as it comes. Let this thought comfort you, dear mother, when you are inclined to remember how young I am to undertake such a responsibility. Say to yourself, 'Dick does not stand alone. His father's God is his God also, and trusting in Him for strength according to his day, he can never be desolate or in doubt as to the course he should take.'"
"May that God bless you abundantly, my dear boy!" replied Mrs. Whitmore, fervently. "As I lie here weak and helpless, I feel that if I had only you to thank Him for, my heart would be filled with gratitude. He took my only boy, but left me one of the best of sons in you. I cannot fret or trouble about the future. It seems to me that in the solemn last days of life a clearer understanding of our Father's dealings with us is vouchsafed, to make up for the fading away of earthly interests. I see how kindly I have been dealt with through ten years of widowhood, and how I have been spared till the youngest of the girls is past mere childhood, and you are grown old enough for them to look up to as brother, guardian, friend."
Richard answered by a few more loving words, and then, after tenderly kissing his stepmother, left her to rest.
Mrs. Whitmore might well think much of Dick, and he of her in return. She was the only mother he could remember, having become his father's second wife when the boy was barely three years old.
She had come to the home a fair young creature, who had, happily for herself and the child, been brought up in an atmosphere of love, and was ready to pour a whole wealth of affection upon little Dick.
From the very day that she entered Mr. Whitmore's house as his wife, she brightened the life of her tiny stepson in every possible way. She was so young herself—very little over twenty—and to Dick, who had been under the charge of a faithful but somewhat prim nurse, her lovely face was like that of an angel.
The loss of her first baby, the only boy born of this second marriage, drew the loving bonds between her husband's child and herself closer still. It was such a comfort to feel his little arms round her neck, to have him for her companion, and to hear his childish prattle as he coaxed her out into the garden and fields, and persuaded her to join again in his baby games, as she did before the little one came and went.