"Nellie!"
"Mother!" cried the girl; and then, as she felt that poor mother's hand feebly endeavoring to twine itself round her neck, she burst into a fresh flood of tears. They saved her senses, perhaps—who knows? Creatures as strong in mind as she was, and stronger far in body, have died or gone mad ere now beneath such a strain on both as had been put upon her for weeks.
"Nellie, my child—my only one—weep not!" her mother whispered tenderly. "Believe me, little daughter, that I die happy."
"O mother, mother!" Nellie sobbed; "and I thought to have given you life!"
Mrs. Netterville paused a moment, and then, in a voice tremulous with feeling, she replied:
"Nellie, I would not deceive you. Life is no idle thing to be cast off carelessly as a garment; and for one brief moment the thought that, but for this sudden malady, I might yet have lived some years longer, filled my soul with sorrow! But it is over now—more than over—and I am at peace. Why should I not? for you are safe—you for whom I chiefly clung to life! Yes! now that a man good and generous, as I long have known Roger More to be, is about to take my place beside you, I go without repining—nay, 'repining' is not the word," she said, correcting herself—"I go in great joy and jubilation to the presence of my God."
"O mother!" sobbed Nellie, cut to the soul by this allusion to her marriage, "that is the worst of all. Do not insist upon it, I entreat you."
"Silence, Nellie!" Mrs. Netterville answered, almost sternly. "Think you I could die happy if I left you—a child—a girl—unprotected in this wild city?"
"Mother, be not angry, I beseech you," Nellie pleaded, "if I remind you that I came hither safe!"