Nor did Christabel like to remind her of it, fearing that the occasion for giving it might never come; but she did feel that it was a mournful thing to see the child, who was in danger of so fearful a sorrow, wasting her grief in pining after foolish fancies, and turning what should have been a refreshing holiday into an occasion of longing after what she thus made into pomps and vanities of this wicked world. Christabel had heard that people who murmur among blessings often have those blessings snatched away, and this made her tremble for poor little discontented Elizabeth. CHAPTER X. “THERE!” exclaimed Susan, “I really have got a letter from Papa himself. What a prize!” “You’ll have to mind your Grosvenor when you answer _him_,” said Sam; “but hollo, what’s the matter?” For Susan’s eyes had grown large, and her whole face scarlet, and she gave a little cry as she read. “Your Mamma, my dear?” asked Miss Fosbrook. “Oh, Mamma—Mamma is so very ill!” and Susan throw the letter down, and broke into a fit of sobbing. Sam caught it up, and Elizabeth came to read it with him, both standing still and not speaking a word, but staring at the letter with their eyes fixed. “What is it, my dear?” said Miss Fosbrook, tenderly putting her arm round Susan; but she sobbed too much to make a word distinct, and Bessie held out the letter to her governess, looking white, and too much awed to speak. Captain Merrifield wrote in short, plain, sad words, that he thought it right that his children should know how matters stood. The doctors’ treatment, for which their mother had been taken to London, had not succeeded, but had occasioned such terrible illness, that unless by the mercy of God she became much better in the course of a day or two, she could not live. If she should be worse, he would either write or telegraph, and Susan and Sam must be ready to set out at once on the receipt of such a message, and come up by the next train to London, where they should be met at the station. He had promised their mother that in case of need he would send for them. God bless you, my poor children, and have mercy on us all! Your loving father, H. MERRIFIELD. That was all; and Christabel felt, more than even the children did, from how full and heavy a heart those words had been written. Though she hardly knew how to speak, she tried to comfort Susan by showing her that her father had evidently not given up all hope; but Susan was crying more at the thought of her Mamma’s present illness and pain than with fear of the future; and Sam said sadly, “He would not have written at all unless it had been very bad indeed.” “Yes,” said Miss Fosbrook; “but I believe, in cases like this, there is often great fear, and then very speedy improvement.”