“The time will come when you will forgive everything, my son.”
“Not till there is acknowledgment and sorrow for the wrong,” answered he, sternly. Then with a sudden burst of tenderness he added: “Goodbye, darling mother. I will try to do anything you wish, even though it is impossible;” but his love, through Janette’s treachery, suffered the deepest wound it had yet received.
Christine of her own accord had almost decided to call upon Mrs. Fleet, but before she could carry out her purpose while hastily coming downstairs one day, she sprained her ankle, and was confined to her room some little time.
She sent Janette with orders for the flowers, who, at once surmising their destination, said to the florist that she was Miss Ludolph’s confidential maid, and would carry them to those for whom they were designed. He, thinking it “all right,” gave them to her, and she took them to a Frenchman in the same trade whom she knew, and sold them at half-price, giving him a significant sign to ask no questions. To the same market she brought the fruit; so from that time they ceased as mysteriously as they had appeared at Mrs. Fleet’s bedside.
But Dennis was so anxious, and his mother was now failing so rapidly, that he scarcely noted this fact. The warm spring days seemed rather to enervate than to strengthen her. He longed to stay with her constantly, but his daily labor was necessary to secure the comforts needful to an invalid. Every morning he bade her a most tender adieu, and during the day often sent Ernst to inquire how she was.
One evening Christine ventured to send Janette on the same errand and impatiently awaited her return. At last she came, appearing as if flushed and angry.
“Whom did you see?” asked Christine, eagerly.
“I saw Mr. Fleet himself.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“He bite his lip, frown, and say, ‘Zere is no answer,’ and turn on his heel into ze house.”
It was now Christine’s turn to be angry. “What!” she exclaimed, “does his Bible teach him to forget and forgive nothing? Can it be that he, like the rest of them, believes and acts on only such parts as are to his mood?”
“I don’t know nothing about him,” said the maid, “only I don’t want to go zere again.”
“You need not,” was the brief reply.
After a long, bitter revery, she sighed: “Ah, well, thus we drift apart. But it is just as well, for apart we must ever be.”
One morning early in May Mrs. Fleet was very weak, and Dennis left her with painful misgivings. During the morning he sent Ernst to see how she was, and he soon returned, with wild face, crying, “Come home quick!”
Breaking abruptly from his startled customer, Dennis soon reached his mother’s side. Mr. and Mrs. Bruder were sobbing at the foot of the bed, and the girls were pleading piteously on either side—“Oh, mother! please don’t go away!”
“Hush!” said Dennis, solemnly. Awed by his manner, all became comparatively silent. He bent over the bed, and said, “Mother, you are leaving us.”
The voice of her beloved son rallied the dying woman’s wandering mind. After a moment she recognized him, smiled faintly, and whispered: “Yes, I think I am—kiss me—goodbye. Bring—the children. Jesus—take care—my little—lambs. Goodbye—true—honest friends—meet me—heaven. Dennis—these children—your charge—bring them home—to me. Pray for her. I don’t know—why—she seems very—near to me. Farewell—my good—true—son—mother’s blessing—God’s blessing—ever rest—on you.”
Her eyes closed, and she fell into a gentle sleep.
“She vake no more in dis vorld,” said Mrs. Bruder, in an awed tone.
Mr. Bruder, unable to control his feelings any longer, hurried from the room. His wife, with streaming eyes, silently dressed the little girls, and took them home with her, crying piteously all the way for mamma.
Pale, tearless, motionless, Dennis sat, hour after hour holding his mother’s hand. He noted that her pulse grew more and more feeble. At last the sun in setting broke through the clouds that had obscured it all day, and filled the room with a sudden glory.
To Dennis’s great surprise, his mother’s eyes opened wide, with the strange, far-off look they ever had when she was picturing to herself the unknown world.
Her lips moved. He bent over her and caught the words: “Hark! hear!—It never was so sweet before. See the angels—thronging toward me—they never came so near before.”
Then a smile of joy and welcome lighted up her wan features, and she whispered, “Oh, Dennis, husband—are we once more united?”
Suddenly there was a look of ecstasy such as her son had never seen on any human face, and she cried almost aloud, “Jesus—my Saviour!” and received, as it were, directly into His arms, she passed from earth.
We touch briefly on the scenes that followed. Dennis took the body of his mother to her old home, and buried it under the wide-spreading elm in the village churchyard, where as a happy child and blooming maiden she had often sat between the services. It was his purpose to remove the remains of his father and place them by her side as soon as he could afford it.
His little sisters accompanied him east, and he found a home for them with a sister of his mother, who was a good, kind, Christian lady. Dennis’s salary was not large, but sufficient to insure that his sisters would be no burden to his aunt, who was in rather straitened circumstances. He also arranged that the small annuity should be paid for their benefit.
It was hard parting from his sisters, whose little hearts seemed breaking at what appeared to them to be a new bereavement.
“How can I leave them!” he exclaimed, with tears falling fast from his eyes.
“They are children,” said his aunt, soothingly, “and will forget their troubles in a few days.”
And so it proved; but Dennis, with a sore heart, and feeling very lonely, returned to Chicago.
When at last Christine got out again, she learned from
