‘Ah!  I wish you could,’ said Elizabeth thoughtfully.

‘I suppose you remember her quite well,’ said Helen, ’and all that happened?’

‘Yes,’ said Elizabeth, ’I remember some things as well as if they had happened yesterday, and others are all confusion in my mind; I quite remember going to kiss her, the last day, and how strange and silent and sad all the room looked, and Aunt Anne keeping quite calm and composed in the room, but beginning to cry as soon as she had led me out.  I shall never forget the awful mysterious feelings I had then.’

‘And could she speak to you?’ said Helen; ‘did she know you?’

’Yes, she gave me one of her own smiles, and said something in a very low voice.’

‘Tell me a little more, Lizzie,’ said Helen, ’for I have thought very much about her lately.  Can you remember her before she was ill?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Elizabeth, speaking slowly, and pausing now and then; ’I remember her well; I sometimes fancy I can hear her voice and her step at night, when she used to come up to the nursery to see us in bed.  I always used to listen for her; and when she began to grow weak, and could not come up so many stairs, I used to lie and cry for half an hour.  And now, when I am reading the same books with the children that I read with her, things that she said to me come back upon me.’

‘Do you think,’ said Helen, ’that you are as like her as Uncle Edward once said you were?’

Elizabeth paused; ‘possibly,’ said she, ’in eyes, nose, and mouth; but, Helen, I do not think there ever could be anyone really like our mother; I was much too young to know all that she was whilst she was alive, but as I have grown older, and compared what I have seen of other people with what I recollect of her, I have grown certain that she must have been the most excellent, sensible, clever, kind, charming person that ever lived.’

‘So Mrs. Staunton says,’ replied Helen; ’she used to tell me that I was a good deal like her, and should be more so; but I do not think she would have said so, if she had seen you.  I am so slow and so dull, and so unlike to you in your quick active ways.’

‘Do you know, Helen,’ said Elizabeth, who had been pursuing her own thoughts, rather than listening to her sister’s words, ’I do believe that we should all have been more like her if she had lived; at least, I am sure I should.’

Helen did not answer; and Elizabeth continued in her usual rapid manner, ’I do not mean to lay all my faults at Mamma’s door, for I should have been much worse without her, and I have spurned away most of the good she would have done me in her kind gentle way; but I do believe no one but my own mother ever knew how to manage me.  You never were so wild, Helen, and you will do far far better.’

‘O Lizzie, what do you mean?’ cried Helen.