There is only one thing, Winthrop, I cannot bear." He was silent.
"I could bear anything -- it would make my life a garden of roses -- if I were sure of having you with me in the next world." "Mamma -- you know I would -- " "I know you would, I believe, give your life to serve me, my boy.

But till you love God as well as that, -- you may be my child, but you are not his." He was silent still; and heaving a sigh, a weary one, that came from very far down in her heart, she turned away again and sat looking towards the fireplace.

But not at it, nor at anything else that mortal eyes could see.

It was a look that left the things around her, and passing present wants and future contingencies, went beyond, to the issues, and to the secret springs that move them.

An earnest and painful look; a look of patient care and meek reliance; so earnest, so intent, so distant in its gaze, that told well it was a path the mind often travelled and often in such wise, and with the self-same burden.