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they do not see thee. She was always gentle with children. The wildest
would do her bidding - she had a tender way with them, indeed she
had!'
Kit had no power to speak. His eyes were filled with tears.
'
Her little homely dress, - her favourite!' cried the old man, pressing it
to his breast, and patting it with his shrivelled hand. 'She will miss it
when she wakes. They have hid it here in sport, but she shall have it -
she shall have it. I would not vex my darling, for the wide world's
riches. See here - these shoes - how worn they are - she kept them to
remind her of our last long journey. You see where the little feet went
bare upon the ground. They told me, afterwards, that the stones had
cut and bruised them. She never told me that. No, no, God bless her!
and, I have remembered since, she walked behind me, sir, that I might
not see how lame she was - but yet she had my hand in hers, and
seemed to lead me still.'
He pressed them to his lips, and having carefully put them back
again, went on communing with himself - looking wistfully from time
to time towards the chamber he had lately visited.
'
She was not wont to be a lie-abed; but she was well then. We must
have patience. When she is well again, she will rise early, as she used
to do, and ramble abroad in the healthy morning time. I often tried to
track the way she had gone, but her small footstep left no print upon
the dewy ground, to guide me. Who is that? Shut the door. Quick! -
Have we not enough to do to drive away that marble cold, and keep
her warm!'
The door was indeed opened, for the entrance of Mr Garland and his
friend, accompanied by two other persons. These were the
schoolmaster, and the bachelor. The former held a light in his hand.
He had, it seemed, but gone to his own cottage to replenish the
exhausted lamp, at the moment when Kit came up and found the old
man alone.
He softened again at sight of these two friends, and, laying aside the
angry manner - if to anything so feeble and so sad the term can be
applied - in which he had spoken when the door opened, resumed his
former seat, and subsided, by little and little into the old action, and
the old, dull, wandering sound.
Of the strangers, he took no heed whatever. He had seen them, but
appeared quite incapable of interest or curiosity. The younger brother
stood apart. The bachelor drew a chair towards the old man, and sat
down close beside him. After a long silence, he ventured to speak.
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