An indescribable feeling, blended of pity and reverence, swelled in his heart as he looked at her and marked the whitening hair, the thin worn little hands so busy with their love work, and thought of all the bearing and forbearing, the waiting, the watching, the long-suffering that had made up her life for so many years. The very look of exquisite calm and resolved strength in her patient eyes and in the gentle lines of her face had something that seemed to him sad and awful--as the purely spiritual always looks to the more animal nature. With his blood bounding and tingling in his veins, his strong arms pulsating with life, and his heart full of a man's vigor and resolve, his mother's life seemed to him to be one of weariness and drudgery, of constant, unceasing self-abnegation. Calm he knew she was, always sustained, never faltering; but her victory was one which, like the spiritual sweetness in the face of the dying, had something of sadness for the living heart. He opened the door and came in, sat down by her on the floor, and laid his head in her lap. "Mother, you never rest; you never stop working." "Oh, no!" she said gaily, "I'm just going to stop now. I had only a few last things I wanted to get done." "Mother, I can't bear to think of you; your life is too hard. We all have our amusements, our rests, our changes; your work is never done; you are worn out, and get no time to read, no time for anything but drudgery." "Don't say drudgery, my boy--work done for those we love _never_ is drudgery. I'm so happy to have you all around me I never feel it." "But, mother, you are not strong, and I don't see how you can hold out to do all you do." "Well," she said simply, "when my strength is all gone I ask God for more, and he always gives it. 'They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.'" And her hand involuntarily fell on the open Bible. "Yes, I know it," he said, following her hand with his eyes--while "Mother," he said, "I want you to give me your Bible and take mine. I think yours would do me more good." There was a little bright flush and a pleased smile on his mother's face-- "Certainly, my boy, I will." "I see you have marked your favorite places," he added. "It will seem like hearing you speak to read them." "With all my heart," she added, taking up the Bible and kissing his forehead as she put it into his hands. There was a struggle in his heart how to say farewell without saying it-- without letting her know that he was going to leave her. He clasped her in his arms and kissed her again and again. "Mother," he said, "if I ever get into heaven it will be through you." "Don't say that, my son--it must be through a better Friend than I am-- who loves you more than I do. I have not died for you--He did." "Oh, that I knew where I might find him, then. You I can see--Him I cannot." His mother looked at him with a face full of radiance, pity, and hope.