"Certainly, Mamma."
"How do you trust me? in what?"
"Why, Mamma, in the first place I trust every word you say entirely I know nothing could be truer; if you were to tell me black is white, Mamma, I should think my eyes had been mistaken. Then everything you tell or advise me to do, I know it is right, perfectly. And I always feel safe when you are near me, because I know you'll take care of me. And I am glad to think I belong to you, and you have the management of me entirely, and I needn't manage myself, because I know I can't; and if I could, I'd rather you would, Mamma."
"My daughter, it is just so it is just so that I wish you to trust in God. He is truer, wiser, stronger, kinder by far than I am, even if I could always be with you; and what will you do when I am away from you? And what would you do, my child, if I were to be parted from you forever?"
"Oh, Mamma!" said Ellen, bursting into tears, and clasping her arms round her mother again "Oh, dear Mamma, don't talk about it!"
Her mother fondly returned her caress, and one or two tears fell on Ellen's head as she did so, but that was all, and she said no more. Feeling severely the effects of the excitement and anxiety of the preceding day and night, she now stretched herself on the sofa, and lay quite still. Ellen placed herself on a little bench at her side, with her back to the head of the sofa, that her mother might not see her face; and, possessing herself of one of her hands, sat with her little head resting upon her mother, as quiet as she. They remained thus for two or three hours without speaking; and Mrs. Montgomery was part of the time slumbering; but now and then a tear ran down the side of the sofa, and dropped on the carpet where Ellen sat: and now and then her lips were softly pressed to the hand she held, as if they would grow there.
The doctor's entrance at last disturbed them. Dr. Green found his patient decidedly worse than he had reason to expect; and his sagacious eye had not passed back and forth many times between the mother and daughter before he saw how it was. He made no remark upon it, however, but continued for some moments a pleasant chatty conversation which he had begun with Mrs. Montgomery. He then called Ellen to him; he had rather taken a fancy to her.
"Well, Miss Ellen," he said, rubbing one of her hands in his, "what do you think of this fine scheme of mine?"
"What scheme, Sir?"
"Why, this scheme of sending this sick lady over the water to get well; what do you think of it, eh?"