A MOTHER OF SORROWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 23, 4 October 1895, Page 20

A MOTHER OF SORROWS.

(Oarolinb Mason in Catkolia.Newt.) ( Concluded.) v Yes, and I cannot bear it, you know," Mary replied, with the Craat terror rising again in her eyes. "lean bear no more. It is too much." The wonun watobed her with anguish which did not even seek expression, but suddenly a flash as of inspiration kindled her face, and she said, touching Mary slightly and then herself, and speaking with animation : " Madame, let me go nurse that leetel baby — so God save that one alive and madame have not to break her heart I " For an instant Mary did not comprehend her meaning. When she did her faoe grew strangely bright with hope. In another moment the house door was opened, the Frenchwoman was on her way upstairs, and Mary stood alone in the empty street, reverently holding the poor carriage in which lay the little child whom she had never seen alive. • • • • • At the mouth of the harbour, on a loDg, sandy point, stands the old lighthouse, long ago fallen into disuse. At its foot is a quaint and time-worn house built of yellow brick and set in a bit of grassy garden with trellised grape Tines about it. The sea sand reaches to tbe sunken garden fence, and shells are often found in tbe grass. On a morning in August the strip of yellow beach and the blue water stretched bright under a dear blue sky, and a fine fresh breeze was crisping the small waves into foam as they ran ever higher and higher. Sitting in the warm, dry sand wbb a fair-haired child of less than a year, laughing and tossing tbe sand with her dimpled hands. Close beside her, with one hand always held around her like a shield of protection, sat a dark-eyed woman, with shining black hair, and a white handkerchief tied upon her breast. Leaning against a post of the old trellis stood a tall, slender woman, looking out into the endless blue of the sea and sky, and ' yet more at the laughing child. In her eyes were infinite content and comfort. Away up in the depths of blue above her head a soft little cloud was floating. Seeing it a very tender thought came into her mind, and she said under her brea'h : — " Tbe sea is blue for my little child, but the sky is blue for tbe child of Marie." Then she saw— and the sight gave her a strange thrill — that tbe dancing waves were ooming ever higher and further on the sand. "Be careful, Marie," she cried, with a voice which vibrated with joy : " the tide is ooming in."