he not have given for power to listen to her
mother, and cry at her ease? But she was forced to hurry, or Betsey
would have been half-way up-stairs in another instant. She was a hopeful
girl, however, and after that 'not to me,' resolved to believe nothing of
the matter. Mrs. King knelt down by her son, and looked at him tenderly;
and then, as his eyes went on begging for an answer, she said, 'Dr. Blunt
never told me there was no hope, my dear, and everything lies in God's
power.'

'But you don't think I shall get well, Mother?'

'I don't feel as if you would, my boy,' she said, very low, and fondling
him all the time. 'You've got to cough like Father and Charlie,
and--though He might raise my boy up--yet anyhow, Alfy boy, if God sees
it good for us, it _will_ be good for us, and we shall be helped through
with it.'

'But I'm not good, Mother! What will become of me?'

'Perhaps the hearing this is all out of God's mercy, to give you time to
get ready, my dear. You are no worse now than you were this morning; you
are not like to go yet awhile. No, indeed, my child; so if you don't put
off any longer--'

'Mother!' called up Ellen. She was in despair. Betsey was not to be
kept by her from satisfying herself upon Alfred's looks, and Mrs. King
was only in time to meet her on the stairs, and tell her that he was so
weak and low, that he could not be seen now, she could not tell how it
would be when he had had his tea.

Ellen thought she had never had so distressing a tea-drinking in her
life, as the being obliged to sit listening civilly to Betsey's long
story about the trouble she had about a stocking of Mrs. Martin's that
was lost in the wash, and that had gone to Miss Rosa Marlowe, because
Mrs. Martin had her things marked with a badly-done K. E. M., and all
that Mrs. Martin's Maria and all Miss Marlowe's Jane had said about it,
and all Betsey's 'Says I to Mother,'--when she was so longing to be
watching poor Alfred, and how her mother could sit so quietly making tea,
and answering so civilly, she could not guess; but Mrs. King had that
sense of propriety and desire to do as she would be done by, which is the
very substance of Christian courtesy, the very want of which made Betsey,
with all her wish to be kind, a real oppression and burthen to the whole
party.

And where was Harold? Ellen had not seen him coming out of church, but
meal-times were pretty certain to bring him home.

'Oh,' said Betsey, 'I'