“But your dear mother would not be pleased to see you do wrong, even if it was in token of your love for her.”
“Then I will not do it.”
If there had been no good seed planted in the child’s heart, at least the soil had been beautifully prepared for the planting—what could have been better done than this reverence for the name and virtues of a mother, and this obedience to her supposed will? I had, I thought, lighted on another truly lovely spring flower.
“Do you come often to visit your mother’s grave?” I asked of the little one. The child looked up as if the inquiry should be repeated.
“We make frequent visits hither,” said the attendant. “We come almost daily in good weather.”
“Oh, yes!” said the child, “we come every fine day to visit where mother lies—and I am not afraid.”
“Why should you fear?” said I.
The child looked confused at the question.
“You will some day meet your mother if you are constant in your love, and thus seek to do whatever your friends tell you she would have desired, and to avoid what she would not have approved.”
“I will endeavor to do so—but—I shall not meet her—we are going to Europe again, and shall not return.”