The first time she had trembled before her mother was when she knelt down beside her, and looking up to her, said, Mother, tell me, tell me, what is it ? " The cry came from her heart; she saw her mother's cheek pale; the words seemed wrung from her as she answered: "I did not mean to tell you." "Not tell me? Not tell me?" Maud's arms were about her, Maud's face against hers, me who have told you everything?" "To save you trouble, to save you trouble," was the broken answer: and they wept together. Mrs. Devereux was going blind. If first she had seen Maud married, known Maud happy, she would have passed into her darkness without a word. But mother and child cannot live together for eighteen loving years and part like this. Maud saw; her mother's eyes had been her eyes in baby days when her feet were guided; now Maud should be her mother's eyes. If marriage went out of the girl's life; if Gerald was not strong enough to take upon himself the burden of a wife who would not live apart from her mother; can it be said that Maud missed the highest that life could give? Maud is twenty-three now; for five years she has lived to be her mother's guide, so close to her that they are never to be seen apart, the young girl leading the weak steps of the woman; the woman with a light in her face, if not in her eyes, that speaks of happiness more of Heaven than of earth. . . . Maud has given up Gerald and youth and youthfulness. But I think I see a future before her, better than that which she gave up. I see a nobler lover than Gerald, watching her and her blind mother, waiting till he dare ask both of them to cheer his home, seeing (as even those old gossips can see now) that Maud has not been spoilt by the love her mother lavished upon her. For love, pure, unselfish and beautiful, never spoilt any human being; it had nourished Maud, and strengthened her, and taught her, when the time came, both duty and happiness. |