IN DAYS OF WAITING.


"Bent o'er her babe, her eyes dissolved in dew,
The big drops mingled with the milk he drew
Gave the sad presage of his future years--
The child of misery, baptized in tears."--_John Langhorne_.


The days of Anna's waiting lagged. She lost all count of time and
season. Each day was painfully like its predecessor, a period of time
to be gone through with, as best she could. She realized after her
mother's death what the gentle companionship had been to her, what a
prop the frail mother had become in her hour of need. For a great
change had come over the querulous invalid with the beginning of her
daughter's troubles, the grievances of the woman of the world were
forgotten in the anxiety of the mother, and never by look or word did
she chide her daughter, or make her affliction anything but easier to
bear by her gentle presence.

Anna, sunk in the stupor of her own grief, did not realize the comfort
of her mother's presence until it was too late. She shrank from the
strangers with whom they made their little home--a middle aged
shopkeeper and his wife, who had been glad enough to rent them two
unused rooms in their house at a low figure. They were not lacking in
sympathy for young "Mrs. Lennox," but their disposition to ask
questions made Anna shun them as she would have an infection. After
her mother's death, they tried harder than ever to be kind to her, but
the listless girl, who spent her days gazing at nothing, was hardly