4.  One day when I had lost my place in the class, I came home discouraged and fretful.  I went to my mother’s chamber.  She was paler than usual, but she met me with the same affectionate smile that always welcomed my return.  Alas! when I look back through the lapse of thirteen years, I think my heart must have been stone not to have been melted by it.  She requested me to go downstairs and bring her a glass of water.  I pettishly asked her why she did not call a domestic to do it.  With a look of mild reproach, which I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred years old, she said, “Will not my daughter bring a glass of water for her poor, sick mother?”

5.  I went and brought her the water, but I did not do it kindly.  Instead of smiling, and kissing her as I had been wont to do, I set the glass down very quickly, and left the room.  After playing a short time, I went to bed without bidding my mother good night; but when alone in my room, in darkness and silence, I remembered how pale she looked, and how her voice trembled when she said, “Will not my daughter bring a glass of water for her poor, sick mother?” I could not sleep.  I stole into her chamber to ask forgiveness.  She had sunk into an easy slumber, and they told me I must not waken her.

6.  I did not tell anyone what troubled me, but stole back to my bed, resolved to rise early in the morning and tell her how sorry I was for my conduct.  The sun was shining brightly when I awoke, and, hurrying on my clothes, I hastened to my mother’s chamber.  She was dead!  She never spoke more—­never smiled upon me again; and when I touched the hand that used to rest upon my head in blessing, it was so cold that it made me start.

7.  I bowed down by her side, and sobbed in the bitterness of my heart.  I then wished that I might die, and be buried with her; and, old as I now am, I would give worlds, were they mine to give, could my mother but have lived to tell me she forgave my childish ingratitude.  But I can not call her back; and when I stand by her grave, and whenever I think of her manifold kindness, the memory of that reproachful look she gave me will bite like a serpent and sting like an adder.

XC.  A MOTHER’S GIFT-THE BIBLE. (255)

1.  Remember, love, who gave thee this,
     When other days shall come,
   When she who had thine earliest kiss,
     Sleeps in her narrow home. 
   Remember! ’twas a mother gave
   The gift to one she’d die to save!

2.  That mother sought a pledge of love,
     The holiest for her son,
   And from the gifts of God above,
     She chose a goodly one;
   She chose for her beloved boy,
     The source of light, and life, and joy.

3.  She bade him keep the gift, that, when
     The parting hour should come,
   They might have hope to meet again
     In an eternal home. 
   She said his faith in this would be
     Sweet incense to her memory.