behind the curtains of my tiny white bed; I wished to rise and go out;
but most of all I had a desire to see my mother.

The door opened and she entered, smiling. Ah, I remember it so well! I
recall so distinctly how she looked as she stood upon the threshold
of the door. And I remember that she brought in with her some of the
sunlight and balminess of the spring day.

I see again the expression of her face as she looked at me; and I hear
the sound of her voice, and recall the details of her beloved dress that
would look funny and old-fashioned to me now. She had returned from her
morning shopping, and she wore a straw hat trimmed with yellow roses and
a shawl of lilac barege (it was the period of the shawl) sprinkled with
tiny bouquets of violets. Her dark curls (the poor beloved curls to-day,
alas! so thin and white) were at this time without a gray hair. There
was about her the fragrance of the May day, and her face as it looked
that morning with its broad brimmed hat is still distinctly present with
me. Besides the bouquet of pink hyacinths, she had brought me a tiny
watering-pot, an exact imitation in miniature of the crockery ones so
much used by the country people.

As she leaned over my bed to embrace me I felt as if every wish was
gratified. I no longer had a desire to weep, nor to rise from my bed,
nor to go out. She was with me and that sufficed--I was consoled,
tranquillized, and re-created by her gracious presence.

I was, I think, a little more than three years old at this time, and my
mother must have been about forty-two years of age; but I had not the
least notion of age in regard to her, and it had never occurred to me
to wonder whether she was young or old; nor did I realize until a later