with him to his
wife, even before he had finished reading the letter.

"You must come," he said--and when Father Beckett says "must," in a
certain tone, one does. It's then that the resemblance, more in
expression than feature, between him and his son shines out like a
light. "It will save mother the trouble of asking for you," he went on,
dragging me joyously with him, his arm round my waist. "She'd do that,
first thing, sure! Why, do you suppose we forget Jim's as much to you as
to us? Haven't you shown us that, every day since we met?"

What answer could I give? I gave none.

Mother Beckett had been lying down for the afternoon nap which by my
orders she takes every day. She'd just waked, and was sitting up on the
lounge, when her husband softly opened the door to peep in. The only
light was firelight, leaping in an open grate.

"Come in, come in!" she greeted us in her silver tinkle of a voice. "Oh,
you didn't disturb me. I was awake. I thought I'd ring for tea. But I
didn't after all. I'd had such a beautiful dream, I hated to come out of
it."

"I bet it was a dream about Jim!" said Father Beckett. He drew me into
the room, and the little lady pulled me down beside her on the wide,
cushiony lounge. Her husband's special arm-chair was close by, but he
didn't subside into it as usual at this cosy hour of the afternoon.
Instead, he knelt stiffly down on one knee, and took the tiny, ringed
hand held out to him. "You wouldn't think a dream beautiful, unless Jim
was in it!"

"Yes I would, if _you_ were in it, dear," she reproached him. "Or Molly.
But Jim was in this dream. I saw him as plainly as I see you both. He
walked in at the door, the way he used to do at home, saying: 'Hello,
Mother, I've been looking for you everywhere!' You know, Father how you
and Jimmy used to feel injured if you called me and I couldn't be found
in a minute. In this dream though, we didn't seem to be back home. I
wasn't sure where we were: only--I was sure----" She stopped, with a
catch in her voice. But Father Beckett took up the sentence where she
let it drop. "Sure of Jim?"

"Yes. He was so real!"

"Well then, Mother darling, I guess the dream ought not to have been
back home, but here, in this very house. For here's where Jim will
come."

"Oh, I do feel that!" she agreed, trying to "camouflage" a tear with a
smile. "Jim's with me all the time."

"Not yet," said Father Beckett, with a stolid gentleness. "Not yet. Not
the re