Do you wish that, too, mother ?" The weary woman almost said she did, but her arms--they gripped the baby as if frightened that he had sent for it.

Jealous Tommy, suddenly deprived of his mother's hand, cried, "It's true what Shovel says, you don't not love me never again; you jest loves that little limmer!" "Na, na," the mother answered, passionate at last, "she can never be to me what you hae been, my laddie, for you came to me when my hame was in hell, and we tholed it thegither, you and me."' This bewildered though it comforted him.

He thought his mother might be speaking about the room in which they had lived until six months ago, when his father was put into the black box, but when he asked her if this were so, she told him to sleep, for she was dog-tired.

She always evaded him in this way when he questioned her about his past, but at times his mind would wander backwards unbidden to those distant days, and then he saw flitting dimly through them the elusive form of a child.
He knew it was himself, and for moments he could see it clearly, but when he moved a step nearer it was not there.

So does the child we once were play hide and seek with us among the mists of infancy, until one day he trips and falls into the daylight.