Please God I will be a true good mother to him!' 'I am thankful to you, ma'am, and the dear child would be thankful if he was old enough to understand.' Still lightly beating the little hand upon her own.

'I wouldn't stand in the dear child's light, not if I had all my life before me instead of a very little of it.

But I hope you won't take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than words can tell, for he's the last living thing left me.' 'Take it ill, my dear soul?
Is it likely?
And you so tender of him as to bring him home here!' 'I have seen,' said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hard rough hand, 'so many of them on my lap.

And they are all gone but this one! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don't really mean it.

It'll be the making of his fortune, and he'll be a gentleman when I am dead.
I--I--don't know what comes over me.