Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/68

 missed the glad little voice at breakfast, and looking at the jam on the table a sad misgiving, stifled as soon as born, shot through you like a knife. It was pitiful to watch all day, in the nursery, by the little bed,—to see the golden head lying so listless, the chubby hands so waxen and still, the heavy lids drooping so wearily over the blue eyes that yet shone with a light you never saw in them before. There rose a mist to dim your own when the patient little voice asked, gently, 'Is that papa?'—and noticing two or three neglected playthings on the counterpane, you walked to the window and wept.

"So the afternoon wore on, and the doctor came, and there was cruel hope and torturing suspense, and a wrench that so stupefied you, it is difficult to remember anything clearly afterwards, though you have a dim perception of a pair of scissors severing some golden