could not guess. He respected her long musings. If he had been rather
older, he would have read happy memories blended with thoughts of
repentance, the whole story of a woman's life in that sublime face
--the careless childhood, the loveless marriage, a terrible passion,
flowers springing up in storm and struck down by the thunderbolt into
an abyss from which there is no return.

"Darling mother," Louis said at last, "why do you hide your pain from
me?"

"My boy, we ought to hide our troubles from strangers," she said; "we
should show them a smiling face, never speak of ourselves to them, nor
think about ourselves; and these rules, put in practice in family
life, conduce to its happiness. You will have much to bear one day! Ah
me! then think of your poor mother who died smiling before your eyes,
hiding her sufferings from you, and you will take courage to endure
the ills of life."

She choked back her tears, and tried to make the boy understand the
mechanism of existence, the value of money, the standing and
consideration that it gives, and its bearing on social position; the
honorable means of gaining a livelihood, and the necessity of a
training. Then she told him that one of the chief causes of her
sadness and her tears was the thought that, on the morrow of her
death, he and Marie would be left almost resourceless, with but a
slender stock of money, and no friend but God.

"How quick I must be about learning!" cried Louis, giving her a
piteous, searching look.