Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/170

160 The child looked up to her, and answered as he had been taught so often.

"All to mother's darling son," he said, smiling to think they were on a subject they could both understand.

"No, not to mother's darling son, lying so cold in his little baby grave; but to you, a beggar's brat—to you—to you." She thrust him out into the garden, and sank into her chair. There she remained, still and cold, till the hours brought her back to consciousness, and it seemed to her when she woke that all the time she lay there she would have been at peace if it were not for the sobbing of a child that she could not move to still.

the morning she was awakened from a short troubled slumber by the voice of the child in the room. He clambered upon the bed, laughing at her eyes still blinking with sleep. But she awoke with the grief of yesterday still upon her, and wondered that he had forgotten so soon.