not be silent.

"You never told me, Ian, the story you began about something that
made you pray!"

Ian saw he could not now draw back without causing, her more trouble
than would the narration.

"Are you sure you will not take cold mother dear?" he said.

"I am warmly clad, my son; and my heart, more than I can tell you,
is longing to hear all about it."

"I am afraid you will not find my story so interesting as you
expect, mother!"

"What concerns you is more interesting to me than anything else in
the whole world, Ian."

"Not more than God, mother?" said Ian.

The mother was silent. She was as honest as her sons. The question,
dim-lucent, showed her, if but in shadow, something of the truth
concerning herself--not so that she could grasp it, for she saw it
as in a glimmer, a fluctuating, vanishing flash--namely, that she
cared more about salvation than about God--that, if she could but
keep her boy out of hell, she would be content to live on without
any nearer approach to him in whom she had her being! God was to her
an awe, not a ceaseless, growing delight!