"My boy's life--only his life!" she prayed, more earnestly than she had
ever prayed in her life before, and then prepared for the long solitary
vigil, of which it was impossible to foresee the end. In its terrible
suspense she forgot every thing except the present; day by day and hour
by hour, as they slipped heavily along. She ceased to think of herself at
all, scarcely even of her husband; her mind was wholly engrossed by
her poor sick boy.
Hers, though hitherto she had never loved him; for he was not lovable
at all, that rough, selfish, headstrong Arthur, the plague of his aunts,
and the terror of the nursery. But now, when he lay on his sick-bed,
lingering on from day to day, in total dependence on her care, with a
heavy future before him, poor child!--for he seemed seriously injured--
there came into his step-mother's weak, womanly heart a woman's
passionate tenderness over all helpless things. She did to him not only
her duty, but something more. She learned to love him.
Had any one told her a while ago that she should stand for hours
watching every change in that pale face, whose common, uncomely
features grew spiritualized with sickness, till she often trembled on
their unearthly sweetness; that twenty times in the night she would start
up from her uncomfortable sofa-bed, listening for the slightest sound;
that the sight of Arthur eating his dinner (often prepared by her own
hands, for the servants of the Lodge were strangely neglectful), or of
Arthur trying to play a game of draughts, and faintly smiling over it,
should cause her a perfect ecstasy of delight, Christian would have
replied "Impossible!" But heaven sometimes converts our impossibles
and inevitables into the very best blessings we have--most right, most
natural, and most dear.
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