CHAPTER III.

KITTY MAYNARD.

ALL that I have about Maurice happened in the spring. Early in the summer he went with his mamma to the country to spend three months with grandma and grandpa Seyton.

Papa's business kept him in the city, but he came down to F— every Saturday night, and promised to try hard for a two weeks' vacation in August.

Almost the first question Mrs. Seyton asked was,—

"How is Kitty Maynard?"

"About the same," was grandma's answer. "She has convulsions nearly every day; but she's the most patient, cheerful creature I ever heard of."

"Who is Kitty Maynard, mamma? And what is the matter with her?"

"I must go and see her to-morrow," remarked the lady, not answering her son. "Indeed I generally make my first visit there."

"The pieces of silk and velvet you sent, did her a world of good," grandma went on. "I believe the cushions and knickknacks she's made of them have brought her in near thirty dollars. Poor thing, you ought to have seen her when I unrolled the bundle and laid 'em out, one by one. You'd have thought she'd had a present of a mine of gold. She worked and worked with her poor deformed hands, trying to hold them up and plan what they'd make, till my heart fairly ached. And all the time not a lisp of complaint or impatience."

"Her happy disposition makes her an object of envy," remarked Maurice's mamma.

"'Tisn't her happy disposition," urged grandpa, coming into the room time enough to hear the last words. "That is, if you're speaking of Kitty Maynard, though, no doubt, a cheerful, even temper does help people to go through trouble. She has something better than that for her support: a spirit of grace in her heart, which enables her to be patient in tribulation, remembering that all her pains are ordered by One who watches over the humblest of His creatures with infinite tenderness."

"Mamma, may I go with you?" asked Maurice eagerly, as the lady was tying on her bonnet the next morning, preparatory to her walk.

"Yes, my dear; and if grandma is willing; we will pick a bouquet of mignonette, roses and verbenas. Kitty always liked flowers."

"Gather as many as you please, Mary," the old lady said, laughing. "I don't know who has a better right, as you send all the plants. Yes, Kitty thinks a deal of a bouquet. I've got a bowl of strawberries too, that Maurice may take if he has a mind."

"What's that in your bundle, mamma?"

"It's a loose gown, made of calico, so that it can be washed. I saw the print in the store and thought it just the thing for Kitty." She untied the bundle and held the robe up for inspection.

It was a neat, tasteful pattern of French calico; a tiny rose and bunch of leaves on a drab ground, trimmed down the front and sleeves with stripes of print to match.

"Just Kitty's style!" said grandma approvingly. "This will be one of her happy days, marked with a white stone, as she calls it."

But the old lady was mistaken. It was one of Kitty's worst days. Ever since light she had been in dreadful convulsions, more severe than she had had for months.

Maurice and his mother walked to the side of the bed through the open door; and no one seemed at leisure to notice them. There lay the poor, deformed girl on a couch in the centre of the small, neat room, at the foot of which her mother sat weeping, while two girls, sisters of Kitty, assisted the doctor in keeping her as much as possible from hurting herself.

Maurice grew so pale at the sight of her terrible suffering, her head and feet sometimes knocking together, that his mother whispered him to put his bouquet and strawberries on the table and stay outside till she came.

It was near twenty minutes before she joined him; and then poor Kitty had sunk into a stupor. Maurice glanced timidly in his mamma's face as, just motioning him to follow, she started for home. There was an expression on it which he did not understand.

It was true that Mrs. Seyton was deeply affected at the sight she had witnessed. As she stood there, watching the distorted features, the eyes rolled up in agony, the teeth set, she asked herself,—

"Could I endure such suffering without a murmur? Could I say with a smile of resignation, such as I have often seen her wear, 'It is my Heavenly Father, my best-loved, and long-tried friend who sends the chastisement; and shall I not patiently endure what it is his will to afflict?'"

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