Could she be asleep? but she was not asleep; for after a while one of the hands went softly up to her cheek, and something was brushed off, which could only be a tear. He could scarcely restrain the cry that came to his lips; but at that moment the door, which he could not see, must have opened, for she gave a start, and roused herself, and turned to speak to somebody. “I am coming, Lizzie,” John heard her answer in a spiritless, weary tone; and then she rose and put away her work, and took up her white shawl, which was lying on the back of a chair. She liked white and pretty bright colours about her, the simple soul. They became her, and were like herself. But when she had wrapped herself in the shawl, which was as familiar to John as her own face, his mother gave a long weary sigh, and sat down again as if she could not make up her mind to move. He had crept quite close to the window by this time, moved beyond expression by the sight of her, with tears in his eyes, and unspeakable compunction in his heart. “What does it matter now?” she said to herself, drearily. She had come to be so much alone that the thought was spoken and not merely thought. When John stepped into the room a moment after, his mother stood and gazed at him as if he had risen out of the earth, and then gave a great cry which rang through all the house, and fell upon his neck. Fell upon his neck--that was the expression--reaching her arms, little woman as she was, up to him as he towered over her; and would not have cared if she had died then, in the passion of her joy. “Mother, dear, you are trembling,” John said, as he put her tenderly into her chair and knelt down beside her, taking her hands into his. “I should not have been so foolish startling you; but I could not resist the temptation when I saw you here.” “Joy does not hurt,” said Mrs Mitford. “I have grown so silly, my dear, now I have not you to keep me right; and it was a surprise. There--I don’t in the least mean to cry; it is only foolishness. And oh, my poor John, your arm!” “It is nothing,” he said; “it is almost well. Never mind it. I am a dreadful guy, to be sure. Is that what you are looking at, mamma mia?” In his wan face and fire-scorched hair she had not known her child. “Oh, John, that you could think so,” she said, in her earnest matter-of-fact way. “My own boy! as if I should not have known you anywhere, whatever you had done to yourself. It was not that. John, my dear?” “What, mother?” “I was looking to see if you were happy, my dearest, dearest boy. Don’t be angry with me. As long as you are happy I don’t mind--what happens--to me.”