"Oh! if she was to hear what you've said!" "I did hear every word," said my mother, entering from the next room, and looking very white.
"There, there," cried nurse, "you wicked boy, see what you've done." "Mother!" I cried, as I ran to her and caught her--poor, little, light, delicate thing that she was--in my arms.
"My boy!" she whispered back, as she clung to me.
"I must go.

I will find him.

I'm sure he is not dead." "And so am I," she cried, with her eyes lighting up and a couple of red spots appearing in her cheeks.

"I could not feel as I do if he were dead." Here she broke down and began to sob, while I, with old nurse's eyes glaring at me, began to feel as if I had done some horribly wicked act, and that nothing was left for me to do but try to soothe her whose heart I seemed to have broken.
"Oh, mother! dear mother," I whispered, with my lips close to her little pink ear, "I don't want to give you pain, but I feel as if I must--I must go." To my utter astonishment she laid her hands upon my temples, thrust me from her, and gazing passionately in my great sun-browned face she bent forward, kissed me, and said: "Yes, yes.

You've grown a great fellow now.