Mary flew towards her; and as her light step and soft accents met her ear, she extended her arms towards her.
"Mary, my child, where are you?" exclaimed she, as she pressed her with convulsive eagerness to her heart. "My son!—my Charles!—to-morrow I shall see him. See him! oh, God help me! I shall never see him more!" And she wept in all the agony of contending emotions, suddenly and powerful excited.
"But you will hear him—you will hold him to your heart—you will be conscious that he is beside you," said Mary.
"Yes, thank God! I shall once more hear the voice of a living child! Oh, how often do those voices ring in my heart, that are all hushed in the grave! I am used to it now; but to think of his returning to this wilderness! When last he left it he had father, brothers, sisters—and to find all gone!"
"Indeed it will be a sad return," said the old housekeeper, as she wiped her eyes; "for the Colonel doated on his sister, and she on him, and his brothers too! Dearly they all loved one another. How in this very room have I seen them chase each other up and down in their pretty plays, with their papa's cap and sword, and say they would be soldiers!"
Mary motioned the good woman to be silent; then turning to Mrs Lennox, she sought to sooth her into composure, and turned, as she always did, he bright side of the picture to view, by dwelling on the joy her son would experience in seeing her. Mrs. Lennox shook her head mournfully.
"Alas! he cannot joy in seeing me, such as I am. I have too long concealed from him my dreary doom; he knows not that these poor eyes are sealed in darkness! Oh, he will seek to read a mother's fondness there, and he will find all cold and silent."
"But he will also find you resigned—even contented," said Mary, while her tears dropped on the hand she held to her lips.
"Yes; God knows I do not repine at His will. It is not for myself these tears fall, but my son. How will he bear to behold the mother he so loved and honoured, now blind, bereft, and helpless?" And the wounds of her heart seemed to bleed afresh at the excitement of even its happiest emotions—the return of a long absent, much-loved son.
Mary exerted all the powers of her understanding, all the tenderness of her heart, to dispel the mournful images that pressed on the mind of her friend; but she found it was not so much her _arguments _as her presence that produced that effect; and to leave her in her present situation seemed impossible. In the agitation of her spirits she had wholly forgotten the occasion that called for Mary's absence, and she implored her to remain with her till the arrival of her son with an earnestness that was irresistible.