'Ah! it will get better now his mind is at rest.'
'If it will but do so!'
'And you know you must be happy to-morrow, because of baby.'
'My dear,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, coming in, 'I am sorry to prevent your talk, but Amy must not be kept awake. She must keep her strength for to-morrow.'
'Good night, then, dear, dear Laura. I am so glad your trouble is over, and you have him again!' whispered Amabel, with her parting kiss; and Laura went away, better able to hope, to pray, and to rest, than she could have thought possible when she left the drawing-room.
'Poor dear Laura,' said Mrs. Edmonstone, sighing; 'I hope he will soon be better.'
'Has it been very uncomfortable?'
'I can't say much for it, my dear. He was suffering terribly with his head, so that I should have been quite alarmed if he had not said it was apt to get worse in the evening; and she, poor thing, was only watching him. However, it is a comfort to have matters settled; and papa and Charlie are well pleased with him. But I must not keep you awake after driving Laura away. You are not over-tired to-night I hope, my dear?'
'Oh, no; only sleepy. Good night, dearest mamma.'
'Good night, my own Amy;' then, as Amy put back the coverings to show the little face nestled to sleep on her bosom, 'good night, you little darling! don't disturb your mamma. How comfortable you look! Good night, my dearest!'
Mrs. Edmonstone looked for a moment, while trying to check the tears that came at the thought of the night, one brief year ago, when she left Amy sleeping in the light of the Easter moon. Yet the sense of peace and serenity that had then given especial loveliness to the maiden's chamber on that night, was there still with the young widow. It was dim lamplight now that beamed on the portrait of her husband, casting on it the shade of the little wooden cross in front, while she was shaded by the white curtains drawn from her bed round the infant's little cot, so as to shut them both into the quiet twilight, where she lay with an expression of countenance that, though it was not sorrow, made Mrs. Edmonstone more ready to weep than if it had been; so with her last good night she left her.
And Amabel always liked to be shut in by herself, dearly as she loved them all, and mamma especially; there was always something pleasant in being able to return to her own world, to rest in the thoughts of her husband, and in the possession of the little unconscious creature that had come to inhabit that inner world of hers, the creature that was only his and hers.