y hold. 'She won't even look at my poem,' I thought,
and hurried proudly from the room, banging one door and leaving
another open. And I silenced my uneasy conscience by fresh dreams of
making my fortune and hers. But the punishment came at last. One day
the doctor took me into a room alone, and told me as gently as he
could what everyone but myself knew already--my mother was dying. I
cannot tell you, child, how the blow fell upon me--how, at first, I
utterly disbelieved its truth! It seemed _impossible_ that the only
hope of my life, the object of all my schemes and fancies, was to be
taken away. But I was awakened at last, and resolved that,
GOD helping me, while she did live, I would be a better son.
I can now look back with thankfulness on the few days we were
together. I never left her. She took her food and medicine from my
hand; and I received my First Communion with her on the day she died.
The day before, kneeling by her bed, I had confessed all the sin and
vanity of my heart and those miserable dreams; had destroyed with my
own hand all my papers, and had resolved that I would apply to my
studies, and endeavour to obtain a scholarship and the necessary
preparation for Holy Orders. It was a just ambition, little woman,
undertaken humbly, in the fear of GOD, and in the path of
duty; and I accomplished it years after, when I had nothing left of my
mother but her memory."

The curate was silent, and I felt, rather than saw, that the tears
which were wetting my frock had not come from my own eyes, though I
was crying bitterly. I flung my arms round his neck, and hugged him
tight.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" I sobbed; "so very, very sorry!"

We became quieter after a bit; and he lifted up his head and smiled,
and called himself a fool for making me sad, and told me not to tell
any one what he had told me, and what babies we had been, except my
mother.

"Tell her _everything_ always," he said.

I soon cheered up, particularly as he took me over the wall, and into
his workshop, and made a coffin for the poor little blackbirds, which
we lined with cotton-wool and scented with musk, as a mark of respect.
Then he dug a deep hole in the garden and we buried them, and made a
fine high mound of earth, and put the "hen and chicken" plants all
round. And that night, sitting on my mother's knee, I told her
"everything," and shed a few more tears of sorrow and repentance in
her arms.

* * * *