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.  Winthrop watched the gentle grave face, so very grave then in its gentleness, until he could not bear it; her cheek was growing pale, and whether with cold or with thinking he did not care to know.

He came forward and gently touched his cheek to the pale one.

“Mamma, do not look so for me!” he whispered.

She pulled him down beside her on the hearth, and nestled her face on his shoulder and wrapped her arms round him.  And they strained him close, but he could not speak to her then.

“For whom should I look? or for what do I live?  My boy!  I would die to know that you loved Christ; —­ that my dear Master was yours too!”

The gently-spoken words tied his tongue.  He was mute; till she had unloosed her arms from about him and sat with her face in her hands.  Then his head sought her shoulder.

“Mamma, I know you are right.  I will do anything to please you —­ anything that I can,” he said with a great force upon himself.

“What can you do, Winthrop?”

He did not answer again, and she looked up and looked into his face.

“Can you take God for your God? and give your heart and your life, —­ all the knowledge you will ever get and all the power it will ever give you, —­ to be used for him?”

“For him, mamma? —­”

“In doing his work —­ in doing his pleasure?”

“Mamma —­ I am not a Christian,” he said hesitatingly and his eye falling.

“And now you know what a Christian is.  Till you can do this, you do nothing.  Till you are Christ’s after this whole-hearted fashion you are not mine as I wish to see you, —­ you are not mine for ever, —­ my boy —­ my dear Winthrop —­” she said, again putting her arm round him and bowing her face to his breast.

Did he ever forget the moment her head lay there? the moment when his arms held the dearest earthly thing life ever had for him?  It was a quiet moment; she was not crying; no tears had been dropped at all throughout their conversation; and when she raised her face it was to kiss him quietly, —­ but twice, on his lips and on his cheek, —­ and bid him good night.  But his soul was full of one meaning, as he shut his little bedroom door, —­ that that face should never be paler or more care-worn for anything of his doing; —­ that he would give up anything, he would never go from home, sooner than grieve her heart in a feather’s weight; nay, that rather than grieve her, he would become a Christian.