infantile mind opens, I will pour in heavenly instruction, that it
may grow in wisdom and become an angel. Will you not let me have it
freely?"

"But why may I not remain here and be its heavenly mother? Oh! I
will love and care for it with a tenderness and devotion equal to,
if not exceeding yours."

Even while the mother spoke there was a change. She saw before her
other objects of affection. There was her husband, sitting in deep
dejection, sorrowing for the loss of one who was dear as his own
life; while three children, the sight of whom stirred her maternal
heart to its profoundest depths, lay sleeping in each other's arms,
the undried tears yet glistening on their lashes.

The wife and mother stretched forth her hands toward these beloved
ones, eager to be with them again and turn their grief into
gladness. But, in a moment, there passed another change. The
pleasant home in which her children had been sheltered for years, no
longer held them; the fold had been broken up and the tender lambs
scattered. One of these little ones the mother saw, sitting apart
from a group of sportive children, weeping over some task work. The
bloom on her cheek had faded--its roundness was gone--the light of
her beautiful eyes was quenched in tears. And, as she looked, a
woman came to the child and spoke to her harshly. She was about
springing forward, when another scene was presented. Her first-born,
a noble-spirited boy, to whose future she had ever looked with pride
and pleasure, stood before her. Alas! how changed. Every thing about
him showed the want of a mother's care and considerate affection;
and from his dear, young face had already vanished the look of