It almost goes without saying that a child like hers was more loved after death than whilst it was living. While it was living its mother had thought of nothing but regaining the trust and the love of her husband. And for him the child could never be a source of happiness. It was necessary to keep it away from him as much as possible; and the child had often felt he was in the way. She, who had failed in and neglected her duty, would show her husband that she was worth something after all. She was always about in the kitchen and in the weaving-room. Where could there be any room, then, for the little boy? But now, afterwards, she remembered how his eyes could beg and beseech. In the evening he liked so much to have her sitting at his bedside. He said he was afraid to lie in the dark; but now it struck her that that had probably only been an excuse to get her to stay with him. She remembered how he lay and tried not to fall asleep. Now she knew that he kept himself awake in order that he might lie a little longer and feel his hand in hers. He had been a shrewd little fellow, young as he was. He had exerted all his little brain to find out how he could get a little share of her love. It is incomprehensible that children can love so deeply. She never understood it whilst he was alive. It was really first now that she had begun to love the child. It was first now that she was really impressed by his beauty. She would sit and dream of his big, strange eyes. He had never been robust and ruddy like most children, but delicate and slender. But how sweet he had been! He seemed to her now as something wonderfully beautiful--more and more beautiful for every day that went. Children were indeed the best of all in this world. To think that there were little beings stretching out their hands to everybody, and thinking good of all; that never ask if a face be plain or pretty, but are equally willing to kiss either, loving equally old and young, rich and poor. And yet they were real little people. For every day that went she was drawn nearer and nearer to the child. She wished that the child had been still alive; but, on the other hand, she was not sure that in that case she would have been drawn so near to it. At times she was quite in despair at the thought that she had not done more for the child whilst he was alive. That was probably why he had been taken from her, she thought. But it was not often that she sorrowed like this. Earlier in life she had always been afraid lest some great sorrow should overtake her, but now it seemed to her that sorrow was not what she had then thought it to be. Sorrow was only to live over and over again through something which was no more. Sorrow in her case was to become familiar with her child's whole being, and to seek to understand him. And that sorrow had made her life so rich.