been very much like a mother to me."

"You should not say that, dear. She loves you very much; and all people
do not love in the same way."

"Oh, it isn't that," said the boy, as if in desperation. "I know she
loves me, but--but----" And there he broke down in a passion of tears
and sobs, amidst which Janetta could distinguish only a few words, such
as "Suzanne said"--"father"--"make me wicked too."

"Do you mean," said Janetta, more shocked than she liked to show, "that
you think your father wicked?"

"Oh, no, no! Suzanne said mother was not good. Not father."

"But, my dear boy, you must not say that your mother is not good. You
have no reason to say so, and it is a terrible thing to say."

"She was unkind to father--and to me, too," Julian burst forth. "And she
struck you; she is wicked and unkind, and I don't love her. And Suzanne
said she would make me wicked, too, and that I was just like her; and I
don't want--to--be--wicked."

"Nobody can make you wicked if you are certain that you want to be
good," said Janetta, gravely; "and it was very wrong of Suzanne to say
anything that could make you think evil of your mother."

"Isn't she naughty, then?" Julian asked in a bewildered tone.

"I do not know," Janetta answered, very seriously. "Only God knows that.
We cannot tell. It is the last thing we ought say."

"But--but--you call me naughty sometimes?" the child said, fixing a pair
of innocent, inquiring eyes upon her.

"Ah, but, my dear, I do not love you the less," said Janetta, out of the
fullness of her heart, and she took him in her arms and kissed him.

"You are more like what I always think a mother ought to be," said
Julian. What stabs children inflict on us sometimes by their artless
words! Janetta shuddered a little as he spoke. "Then ought I to love
her, whether she is good or bad?"

Janetta paused. She was very anxious to say only what was right.

"Yes, my darling," she said at last. "Love her always, through
everything. She is your mother, and she has a right to your love."

And then, in simple words, she talked to him about right and wrong,
about love and duty and life, until, with brimming eyes, he flung his
arms about her, and said----

"Yes, I understand now. And I will love her and take care of her always,
because God sent me to her to do that."

And he objected no more to the daily visit to his mother's room.

The sick woman's restless eyes, sharpened by illness, soon discerned t