The letter--although the unformed chirography betrayed the writer's

inexperience in pen-practice--was correctly spelled and easy in

style, crowded with loving messages to "dear papa and mamma;"

relating anecdotes of school and home life, and while expressive of

her longings for her parents' return, professing willingness to stay

where she was "until mamma should be well enough to come back."

"I pray every night that God will cure her, and make us all happy

again," she wrote. "I dreamed one night last week that I saw her

dressed for a party, all rosy and funny and laughing, as she used to

be, and that she kissed me, and put her arm around me, and called me

'baby Florence' and 'little one,' in her sweet voice. Wasn't it

strange? I awoke myself crying, I was so happy! I do try to be

brave, and not fret about what cannot be helped, papa, because I

promised you I would; but sometimes it is right hard work. It is

always easier for a whole day after I get one of your nice, long

letters. It is not QUITE as good as having real talk with you, but

it is the best treat I can have when you are away."

Mrs. Sutton wiped her eyes.

"The dear child!" she said, in the subdued tone habitual to the

frequenters of the sick-room. "No wonder you want to see her! Why

didn't you give her a holiday, and bring her to Virginia with you?"

"I dreaded the effect of a child's high animal spirits and

thoughtless bustle upon her mother's health"--the shadow thickening

into trouble. "The next best thing to having her with me is to know

that she is kindly and lovingly looked after by my married sister,

of whom she is very fond. Florence is merrier, if not always

happier, with her young cousins than if she were condemned to the

repression and joyless routine of a house where the care of the sick

is the most engrossing business to all."

The more Mrs. Sutton meditated upon this conversation, the more

enigmatical it appeared that the mother never spoke of missing her

only living child--never pined for the sound of her vivacious talk

and the sight of her winning ways. Curiosity--her strong love for

all children, and a lively interest in Florence and Florence's

father, the two who assuredly did feel the separation--got the

ascendency over discretion that night, when Rosa, too nervous to

sleep, begged her to talk, "to scare away the horrors that were

sitting, a blue-black brood, upon her pillow."




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