She had never had this adoring tenderness from her son, who had heard her remark that she was at the gates of death too often to live in a state of anxiety; but to Lois her gentle resignation and heavenly anticipations were most impressive.

The girl's affection almost reconciled the elder lady to having been made to come to Ashurst while the snow still lingered in sheltered spots, and before the crocuses had lighted their golden censers in her garden; for Lois went to see her every day, and though she could not always escape without a meaning look from the invalid, or a sigh for Dick's future, she thoroughly enjoyed her visits.

It was charming to sit in the dusk, before the dancing flames of an apple-wood fire, the air fragrant with the hyacinths and jonquils of the window garden, and listen to tales of Mrs.Forsythe's youth.
Lois had never heard such stories.

Mrs.Dale would have said it was not proper for young girls to know of love affairs, and it is presumable that the Misses Woodhouse never had any to relate; so this was Lois's first and only chance, and she would sit, clasping her knees with her hands, listening with wide, frank eyes, and cheeks flushed by the fire and the tale.
"But then, my poor health," Mrs.Forsythe ended with a sigh, one evening, just before it was time for Lois to go; "of course it interfered very much." "Why, were you ill _then_," Lois said, "when you used to dance all night ?" "Oh, dear me, yes," answered the other shaking her head, "I have been a sufferer all my life, a great sufferer.

Well, it cannot last much longer; this poor body is almost worn out." "Oh, _don't_ say it!" Lois cried, and kissed the white soft hand with its shining rings, in all the tenderness of her young heart.
All this endeared the girl very much, and more than once Mrs.Forsythe wrote of her sweetness and goodness to her son.