"Yes, darling, you are a dear, patient, good little girl."
An expression of happiness, amounting almost to rapture, beamed in
Eva's face, at these words of unqualified praise.
"Oh, mother! dear, dear mother," she exclaimed, "will you not always call your little Eva your dear, good little girl? Oh, I will try to be so very good if you will. My heart is so glad now," and with the strength produced by the sudden excitement, she clasped her feeble arms about her mother's neck.
"Her mind begins to wander," whispered the physician to the father; but there was no reply. A sudden light had broken upon that stern man, and motionless he stood, and listened to the words of his dying child.
But she had already sunk back in an apparent slumber, and hour after hour those calm but agonized parents sat watching by her side, at times almost believing that the spirit had indeed gone, so deep was the repose of that last earthly slumber.
At length she aroused, and with the same beautiful smile which had played upon her features when she sunk to rest, again exclaimed,
"I am so very happy, dear mother; will you call me your good little
Eva once more?"
In a voice almost suffocated with emotion, the desired words were again breathed forth, and long and fervent kisses imprinted upon the child's pale cheek.
"My heart is so glad!" she murmured. "Oh, mother, kiss my brothers when I am gone, and smile upon them and call them good. It is like the sunlight on a cloudy day.
"Put your face close to mine, dear father, and let me whisper in your ear. Call poor mother good, sometimes, and kiss her as you do me, now that I am dying, and she will never look so sad any more."