Then tearing off her gloves, she laid her white
fingers softly upon the coarse garments, the broken toys, the few
worn books, and bits of paper covered with pencil-marks, the strip
of gay patchwork with the needle still sticking in it, and the
little brass thimble upon it.
At one end of the drawer stood a little pair of slippers, with some
slightly soiled white stockings rolled up and laid within them. At
sight of these, a low cry-it might have been of pain, it might have
been of joy-crept from between the pale lips of the mother; and,
reverently lifting the little shoes, she kissed them again and
again, in an eager, longing fashion, as one might kiss the lips of a
dying child whom human love may yet recall to human life.
"Thim's the little shlippers that Teddy saved his bit uv
spinding-money till he could buy for her, bekase he said the fut uv
her wor too purty to put in sich sthrong shoe's as I'd got; and thin
it was mesilf that saved the white little shtockings out uv me tay
an' sugar; an' it's like a little fairy (save me for spakin' the
word) that she lucked in 'em."
Pressing the little shoes close to her bosom with both hands, the
mother turned those mournful eyes upon the speaker, listening to
every word, and, at the end, said eagerly,--
"Tell me some more! Tell me every thing she said and did! Oh! was
she happy?"
The word had grown so strange upon her lips and in her heart, that,
as she said it, all the tense chords, so long attuned to grief,
thrilled with a sharp discord; and, turning yet paler than before,
she sank upon a chair, and, leaning her forehead on the edge of the
open drawer, wept such tears as, pray God, happy mothers, you and I
may never weep.
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