Mother, didn't my father love me once better than his own life?
I think he did.

O, yes, and I returned it by murdering him--by sending him--that father there that loved me so well--by--by sending him to the hangman--to a death of disgrace and shame.

That's what his own Nannie, as he used to call me, did for him.

But no shame---no guilt to you, father; the shame and the guilt are your own Nannie's, and that's the only comfort I have; for you're happy, what I will never be, either in this world or the next.

You are now in heaven; but you will never see your own Nannie there." The recollections caused by her appearance, and the heart-rending language she used, touched her mother's heart, now softened by her sufferings into pity for her affliction, if not into a portion of the former affection which she bore her.
"O Nannie, Nannie!" said she, now weeping bitterly upon a fresh sorrow, "don't talk that way--don't, don't; you have repentance to turn to; and for what you've done, God will yet forgive you, and so will your mother.
It was a great crime in you; but God can forgive the greatest, if his own creatures will turn to him with sorrow for what they've done." She never once turned her eyes upon her mother, nor raised them for a moment from her father's face.