believed it was sleep, and expected her to awake; for, when they
took her from me, I was half out of my senses, and screamed for them
to leave me my mother.

A kind old lady, a friend to my mother, took me in her lap and put
her arms round me, and tried to soothe and comfort me. She told me
my mother had gone to heaven; that it was only her body that was
dead; but that her soul was living, and was gone to heaven. "She
will never be sick or unhappy any more; she is gone to God, and she
will live forever with Jesus Christ and all good beings."

"But I want to see her," said I.

"You will see her again, I doubt not, my child, if you are good,"
the old lady said. Perhaps I should not have remembered so exactly
what she said, if she had not frequently repeated the same thing to
me, and if I had not loved my mother so much.

This excellent lady took me home with her, and it was to her
goodness I owe every thing. She had lost nearly all her property by
the failure of a merchant to whom she had lent money; she had
supported herself by taking boarders. I was perfectly destitute; my
mother had made out to get a living by taking in sewing, but left
nothing. The last year of her life she could not have got along
without my assistance, and what was given her by her charitable
neighbors; and for the last three months she could not even make her
bed, or clean her own room, or do her little cooking, without my
help. And O, how happy I was when I was helping my dear mother! Now
at this moment, when I am so old, and forget so many things, how
well I remember her and all she said! It seems as if I could hear