He did not find his mother at home, but she had been there since he left in the morning, for the table was spread in readiness for him. She had remembered him in the sick room, and mindful of his comfort had come, prepared the meal for him, and gone again. The boy's heart smote him for the many ungrateful and hard thoughts he had borne her that day. He was removing the things from the table, for he thought that he would write when she came in. He saw at once that she had been weeping, and his assumed indifference vanished in an instant; he cried out, "_Is_ she dead?" "No; but they're in dreadful trouble over to that house. Oh, son! if you could see that dear angel lying there so beautiful on the bed, and the room so quiet, and the poor creature's pa and ma taking on so, and she not knowing it! It's a dreadful sight! It's strange, it is!" "But is she no better, mother? Won't she recover?" "No hope of such a thing. I wanted to go back to-night to sit there in the room with her, but they said I'd tire out, and maybe they'd _have_ to call on me again; and so I _must_ rest to-night." "But _do_ you feel so very tired?" "No; I could sit there just as well as sleep here. I'm so anxious. I'll have time enough to rest when I can't do nothing for them, poor things!" "Oh, do go then! Has she been in her right mind to-day?" "Not a minute. But it's strange though, how her thoughts has kept on to one thing the whole time. I wish you could see her arm! It's dreadful inflamed; and it's stained with something like ink, and odd enough, just in the shape of a cross. It couldn't be no supernatural work, George. I told you her gold cross was lost." "And does her arm pain her?" "Not that, I guess. But it's all about having her _hope_ amputated, and then she'll lift her arm, as if she couldn't do it hardly, and talk about the cross being heavy to bear. And then she cries about the Angel of Wrath, and says he's coming--and whispers, and takes on the queerest you ever see. Oh, it would be dreadful if she wasn't so lovely, and so angel-like, when she talks about these horrid things!" "What horrid things?" he asked, abruptly and coldly, as though just waking from a sleep. "Oh, but you're heartless! I believe you don't care for the dying no more than you do for the living. I believe you've slept all the time I was talking!" "If I didn't care about her being nursed every minute, would I ask you to go back, when I know you're tired? They are nothing to me, and you are my mother! Would I ever ask you to go, if I could sleep while you are talking about HER? Will you go?"