THE MOTHER'S DREAM

When Rosalie awoke, her mother's eyes were fixed upon her, and she was sitting up in bed. Her breathing was very painful, and she was holding her hand to her side, as if she were in much pain.

The candle had burnt low in the socket, and the early morning light was stealing into the caravan. Jessie was still asleep in the corner, with her head leaning against the wall.

'Rosalie,' said her mother, under her breath, 'where are we, and who is that girl?'

'We're half-way to the town, mammie--out on a moor; and that's Britannia!'

'What do you mean?' asked her mother.

'It's the girl we saw riding on that gilt car in Lesborough, and she has run away, she was so miserable there.'

And then Rosalie told her mother the sad story she had just heard.

'Poor thing! poor young thing!' said the sick woman. 'I'm glad you took her in; mind you give her a good breakfast She does well to go back to her mother; it's the best thing she can do. Is she asleep, Rosalie?'

'Yes, mammie dear, she went to sleep before I did.'

'Do you think it would wake her if you were to sing to me?'

'No, mammie dear, I shouldn't think so, if I didn't sing very loud.'

'Then could you sing me your hymn once more? I've had the tune in my ears all night, and I should so much like to hear it.'

So little Rosalie sang her hymn. She had a sweet low voice, and she sang very correctly; if she had heard a tune once she never forgot it.

When she had finished singing, Jessie moved, and opened her eyes, and looked up with a smile, as if she were in the midst of a pleasant dream.

Then, as she saw the inside of the caravan, the sick woman, and Rosalie, she remembered where she was, and burst into tears.

'What's the matter?' said the child, running up to her, and putting her arms round her neck; 'were you thinking of your mother?'

'No, dear,' she said; 'I was dreaming.'

'Ask her what she was dreaming,' said Rosalie's mother.

'I was dreaming I was at home, and it was Sunday, and we were at the Bible-class, and singing the hymn we always begin with, I was singing it when I woke, and it made me cry to think it wasn't true.'

'Perhaps it was my singing that made you dream it,' said Rosalie; 'I've been singing to my mammie.'

'Oh, I should think that was it,' said the girl. 'What did you sing? will you sing it to me?'

Rosalie sang over again the first verse of the hymn. To her surprise, Jessie started from her seat and seized her by the hand.

'Where did you get that?' she asked hurriedly; 'that's the very hymn I was singing in my dream. We always sing it on Sunday afternoons at our Bible-class.'

'I have it on a card,' said Rosalie, bringing her favourite card down from the wall.

'Why, who gave you that?' said the girl; 'it's just like mine; mine has a ribbon in it just that colour! Where _did_ you get it?'

'We were passing through a village,' said Rosalie, 'and a kind woman gave it to me. We stopped there about an hour and she was singing it outside her cottage door.'

'Why it must have been our village, surely!' said Jessie; 'I don't think they have those cards anywhere else. What was the woman like?'

'She was a young woman with a very nice face; she had one little boy about two years old, and he was playing with his ball in front of the house. His mother was so good to us--she gave us some bread and milk.'

'Why, it must have been Mrs Barker!' said the girl.

'She lives close to us; our cottage is just a little farther up the road.

She often sings when she's at work. To think that you've been to our village! Oh, I wish you'd seen my mother!'

'Do you know Mrs. Leslie?' asked the sick woman, raising herself in bed.

'Yes, that I do,' said the girl. 'She's our clergyman's wife--such a kind lady--oh, she is good to us! I'm in her Bible-class; we go to the vicarage every Sunday afternoon. Do _you_ know her?' she asked, turning to Rosalie's mother.

'I used to know her many years ago,' said the sick woman; 'but it's a long, long time since I saw her.'

Rosalie crept up to her mother's side, and put her little hand in hers; for she knew that the mention of her sister would bring back all the sorrowful memories of the past. But the sick woman was very calm to day; she did not seem at all ruffled or disturbed, but she lay looking at Jessie with her eyes half-closed. It seemed as if she were pleased even to look at some one who had seen her sister Lucy.

About six o'clock Toby came to the caravan door, and asked how his mistress was, and if they were ready to start. He was very surprised when he saw Jessie sitting inside the caravan. But Rosalie told him in a few words how the poor girl came there, and asked him in what direction she ought to walk to get to her own home. Toby was very clever in knowing the way to nearly every place in the country, and he said that for ten miles farther their roads would be the same, and Jessie could ride with them in the caravan.

The poor girl was very grateful to them for all their kindness. She sat beside Rosalie's mother all the morning, and did everything she could for her. The effect of the doctor's medicine had passed off, and the sick woman was very restless and wakeful. She was burnt with fever, and tossed about from side to side of her bed. Every now and then her mind seemed to wander, and she talked of her mother and her sister Lucy, and of other things which Rosalie did not understand. Then she became quite sensible, and would repeat over and over again the words of the hymn, or would ask Rosalie to read to her once more about the lost sheep and the Good Shepherd.

When the child had read the parable, the mother turned to Jessie, and said to her, very earnestly--

'Oh, do ask the Good Shepherd to find you now, Jessie; you'll be so glad of it afterwards.'

'I've been so bad!' said Jessie, crying. 'My mother has often talked to me, and Mrs. Leslie has too; and yet, after all, I've gone and done this. I daren't ever ask Him to find me now.'

'Why not, Jessie?' said Rosalie's mother; 'why not ask Him?'

'Oh, He would have nothing to say to me now,' said the girl, sobbing, and hiding her face in her hands. 'If I'd only gone to Him that Sunday!'

'What Sunday?' asked Rosalie.

'It was the Sunday before I left home. Mrs. Leslie talked to us so beautifully; it was about coming to Jesus. She asked us if we had come to Him to have our sins forgiven; and she said, "If you haven't come to Him already, do come to Him to-day." And then she begged those of us who hadn't come to Him before, to go home when the class was over, and kneel down in our own rooms and ask Jesus to forgive us that very Sunday afternoon. I knew _I_ had never come to Jesus, and I made up my mind that I would do as our teacher asked us. But, as soon as we were outside the vicarage, the girls began talking and laughing, and made fun of somebody's bonnet that they had seen at church that morning. And when I got home I thought no more of coming to Jesus, and I never went to Him;--and oh, I wish that I had!'

'Go now,' said Rosalie's mother.

'It wouldn't be any good,' said the girl sorrowfully; 'if I thought it would--if I only thought He would forgive me, I would do anything--I would walk twice the distance home!'

'"He goeth after that which is lost until He find it,"' said the sick woman. 'Are _you_ lost, Jessie?'

'Yes,' said the girl; 'that's just what I am!'

'Then He is going after you,' said Rosalie's mother again.

Jessie walked to the door of the caravan, and sat looking out without speaking. The sunlight was streaming on the purple heather, which was spread like a carpet on both sides of the road. Quiet little roadside springs trickled through the moss and ran across the path. The travellers had left the pine-forest behind, and there was not a single tree in sight;--nothing but large grey rocks and occasional patches of bright yellow furze amongst the miles and miles of heath-covered moor.