The frightened face was held up to be kissed and arms were clinging around her.
“I’m always just as frightened every time—he was in the summer-house and father found him—he can speak now—it doesn’t last very long.”
“Not now, no one can help him; father is with him. If this keeps on Dr. Greyson says that some day he will have to be undressed and dressed just like an infant. He has been nervous all day, as if he were watching for something. O, Tessa, I want to die, I want him to die, I can’t bear it any longer.”
Tessa’s only reply was her fast dropping tears.
“If he only had a mother,” said Laura; “I want him to have a mother now that he can never have a wife! If he only had been married, his wife would have clung to him, and loved him, and taken care of him. Don’t you think that God might have waited to bring this upon him until he was married?”
“Oh, no, no, _no!_” shivered Tessa; “we do not know the best times for trouble to come. I shall always believe that after this.”
“He always liked you better than any one; do you know that he has a picture of you taken when we went to the Institute? You have on a hat and sacque, and your school books are in your hand.”
“I remember that picture! Has he kept it all this time?”
“If he asks for you—he will hear your voice—will you go in?”
“No, I can not see him,” she answered nervously.
“Then I will walk down to the gate with you. He will be sure to ask, and I do not like to refuse him.”
Walking slowly arm in arm as they used to walk from school years ago, they passed down the path, at first, speaking only of Felix, and then as they neared the gate, falling into light talk about Laura’s work, the new servant who was so kind to Felix, the plants that Laura had taken into the sitting-room, “to make it cosy for Felix this winter,” the shirts that she had cut out for him and their father, and intended to make on the machine; about the sewing society that was to meet to-morrow, a book that Felix was reading aloud evenings while their father dozed and she sewed, some Mayfield gossip about Dr. Towne, and their plan of taking Felix travelling next summer. Tessa listened and replied. She never had any thing to say about herself. Laura thought with Mrs. Wadsworth that Tessa had never had any “experiences.” Miss Jewett and Tessa’s father knew; but it was not because she had told them. What other people chattered about to each other she kept for her prayers.