CHAPTER XXVIII.
Just as she
was going to quit her room, to visit Henry, his mother called on her.
"My son
is worse to-day," said she, "I come to request you to spend not only
this day, but a week or two with me.—Why should I
conceal any thing from you? Last night my child made his mother his confident,
and, in the anguish of his heart, requested me to be thy friend—when I shall be
childless. I will not attempt to describe what I felt when he talked thus to
me. If I am to lose the support of my age, and be again a widow—may I call her Child whom my Henry wishes me to adopt?"
This new
instance of Henry's disinterested affection, Mary felt most forcibly; and
striving to restrain the complicated emotions, and sooth the wretched mother,
she almost fainted: when the unhappy parent forced tears from her, by saying,
"I deserve this blow; my partial fondness made me neglect him, when most
he wanted a mother's care; this neglect, perhaps, first injured his
constitution: righteous Heaven has made my crime its own punishment; and now I
am indeed a mother, I shall loss my child—my only child!"
When they
were a little more composed they hastened to the invalide;
but during the short ride, the mother related several instances of Henry's
goodness of heart. Mary's tears were not those of
unmixed anguish; the display of his virtues gave her extreme delight—yet human
nature prevailed; she trembled to think they would soon unfold themselves in a
more genial clime.