Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/500

492 are like rose leaves flying hither and thither; the boughs without throw their shadows on his eager, delighted, wilful face. Oh, Wattie! through all the years to come shall I ever get you out of my head, as you patter to and fro to-night, a laughing, beautiful little hovering shape in white? Not until the sun in dying has withdrawn his errant sons and daughters does Wattie tire of his play; then I catch him up in my arms, and we roll over and over together on the bed, he shouting with laughter. Then, when he is quieter, to my surprise he scrambles on to my lap, and kneels there; laying his tiny dimpled hands palm to palm, and shutting his eyes tight, he makes his evening prayer, something after this fashion: "Peese Dawd—peese Dawd bess pap-a, mem-a, Lallie; make 'Otty vay dood boy, T'ist's 'ake. Yaymen." Then, being between the sheets, he pulls my head down on the pillow beside him, clasps his arms round my neck, and in another minute is sound asleep with doubled-up fists. After a while I leave him and go to nurse, for there is much to think of and settle. If any other case of fever happens near us, she is to go away with the boys (who are at school all day in Pimpernel); if Wattie (my lips blanche as they utter the possibility) is already infected, she is to go away all the more. She says she shall take me too, but I laugh in her face; it is so likely that I shall leave him here with hirelings to wait upon him.

"And it will be a pleasant little surprise for your mamma to come home and find you dead and buried, Miss Nell," says nurse, in grim conclusion.

"Only wretched people never catch fevers or die of anything but hard old age," I say. "It is the happy ones, who have so much to leave behind, who go."

I sit by Wattie's side far into the night; but his skin is still cool and fresh, he sleeps calmly, and seems to know no uneasiness; and at last I undress and lie down beside him. I awake suddenly,