"I cannot do without him, if you can.

You couldn't have loved him half so well as I did or you would never take his loss so quietly." "O Mamma!" cried the child, her tone speaking deeply wounded feeling, "if you could know _how_ I loved him!--my dear, dear father! Oh, why am I left behind?
why could I not go with him ?" "And leave your mother all alone!" was the reproachful rejoinder.

"But you always loved him best; never cared particularly for me; and never will I suppose," she added, going into a stronger paroxysm than before.
"O mamma, don't!" cried Evelyn, in sore distress.

"I love you dearly too; and you are all I have left." She threw an arm about her mother's neck as she spoke, but was thrust impatiently aside.
"You are suffocating me; can't you see it?
Help me to bed in the next room, and call Hannah.

She perhaps will have sense enough to apply restoratives." But both Lester and Elsie had come to her aid, and the former, taking her in his arms, carried her to the bed, while Evelyn hastened to call the nurse who had for the past week or two assisted in the care of him who now no longer needed anything but the last sad offices.
Laura's grief continued to be very violent in its manifestations, yet did not hinder her from taking an absorbing interest in the preparation of her own and Evelyn's mourning garments.