It is no longer the mother but the daughter who is in front, and she cries, 'Mother, you are lingering so long at the end, I have ill waiting for you.' But she knew no more than we how it was to be; if she seemed weary when we met her on the stair, she was still the brightest, the most active figure in my mother's room; she never complained, save when she had to depart on that walk which separated them for half an hour.

How reluctantly she put on her bonnet, how we had to press her to it, and how often, having gone as far as the door, she came back to stand by my mother's side.

Sometimes as we watched from the window, I could not but laugh, and yet with a pain at my heart, to see her hasting doggedly onward, not an eye for right or left, nothing in her head but the return.
There was always my father in the house, than whom never was a more devoted husband, and often there were others, one daughter in particular, but they scarce dared tend my mother--this one snatched the cup jealously from their hands.

My mother liked it best from her.

We all knew this.
'I like them fine, but I canna do without you.' My sister, so unselfish in all other things, had an unwearying passion for parading it before us.
It was the rich reward of her life.
The others spoke among themselves of what must come soon, and they had tears to help them, but this daughter would not speak of it, and her tears were ever slow to come.