heart.
A superstitious feeling that she had not remembered him enough, and
that this was her punishment, took possession of Mrs Eddington's brain.
She remembered with remorse what had been occurring at the moment her
child had fallen insensible among the primroses. On the very
anniversary of her poor Harry's death she had forgotten him so far!
Never would she forget him again.

The words the child spoke had recorded a mere delusion, the doctor told
her, of the little dazed brain in the moment preceding unconsciousness;
but for all that rational view, they awed the mother, haunted her.

"Milly's p'or flo'rs is dead. Milly's daddy took Milly's flo'rs and
they died," Milly had said.

Never would Mrs Eddington leave her child, or forget Milly's daddy
again.

* * * * *

Yet, when the anniversary of poor Harry Eddington's death came round
again, Milly had been for three-quarters of a year running about as of
old; her mother had been for two months the wife of Major Walsh.

They had spent their honeymoon at Major Walsh's own place in Wiltshire,
had stayed for another month in his London house, and they at last
turned their steps in the direction of the home which had been Harry
Eddington's, where his child had been left under the guardianship of
the new Mrs Walsh's mother.

"You used to complain of the dulness of the place and of how buried
alive you were there. You have been away for eight weeks, and you are
mad to get back to it," the husband said, with a jealous eye upon his
bride.

She subdued, judiciously, the joy which had been in her voice. "I am
glad to see the old place again--yes," she said. "Won't it be
delightful for us to be together there, where we first knew each
other?"

"It is the child you want--not me," he said, with grudging reproach.
She found it necessary to make some quite exaggerated statements to
reassure him.

Her mother was in the carriage which met them at the station. "Milly is
staying up, till you come," she told them. "I left her capering wildly
about the nursery with delight."

"I hope she won't over-excite herself," the mother said, and the
grandmother laughed at that anxiety. No child of hers had ever had a
weakness of the heart, and she was inclined to ridicule the idea that
Milly required more care than had been given to her own children.

Full of longing to see her child, Mrs Walsh sprang from the carriage,
and ran up the broad steps