Her mother soon came in, and startled by her flushed look, asked how she
did. "Well," Nettie said. Mrs. Mathieson was uneasy, and brought her
something to take, which Nettie couldn't eat; and insisted on her lying
still and trying to go to sleep. Nettie thought she could not sleep; and
she did not for some time; then slumber stole over her, and she slept
sweetly and quietly while the hours of the summer afternoon rolled away.
Her mother watched beside her for a long while before she awoke; and
during that time read surely in Nettie's delicate cheek and too delicate
colour, what was the sentence of separation. She read it, and smothered
the cry of her heart, for Nettie's sake.

The sun was descending toward the western hilly country, and long level
rays of light were playing in the tree-tops, when Nettie awoke.

"Are you there, mother?" she said--"and is the Sunday so near over! How
I have slept."

"How do you feel, dear?"

"Why, I feel well," said Nettie. "It has been a good day. The gold is
all in the air here--not in the streets." She had half raised herself
and was sitting looking out of the window.

"Do you think of that city all the time?" inquired Mrs. Mathieson, half
jealously.

"Mother," said Nettie, slowly, still looking out at the sunlight, "would
you be very sorry, and very much surprised, if I were to go there before
long?"

"I should not be very much surprised, Nettie," answered her mother, in a
tone that told all the rest. Her child's eye turned to her sorrowfully
and understandingly.

"You'll not be very long before you'll be there too," she said. "Now
kiss me, mother."

Could Mrs. Mathieson help it? She took Nettie in her arms, but instead
of the required kiss there came a burst of passion that bowed her head
in convulsive grief against her child's breast. The pent-up sorrow, the
great burden of love and tenderness, the unspoken gratitude, the
unspeakable longing of heart, all came in those tears and sobs that
shook her as if she had forgotten on what a frail support she was half
resting. Nay, nature must speak this one time; she had taken the matter
into her own hands, and she was not to be struggled with, for a while.
Nettie bore it--how did she bear it? With a little trembling of lip at
first; then that passed, and with quiet sorrow she saw and felt the
suffering which had broken forth so stormily. True to her office, the
little peacemaker tried her healing art. Softly stroking her mothe