ed across the room to where Miles stood, almost as tall
and broad as the doctor himself, and her thoughts flew back to the time
when he was a little curly-headed boy who vowed he would never leave his
mother. "I won't never get married," he had announced one day. "You
shall be my wife. You are daddy's wife, and I don't see why you
shouldn't be wife to both your darlin's!" Another day--"I'll stay with
you all my life, and when you're a nold, nold woman I'll wheel you about
in a Barf chair." Later on had come the time when the first dawning of
future responsibility began to weigh on the childish mind--"I can't sink
how I can ever make pennies like daddy does! I can't write proper
letters like grown-ups do, only the printed ones!" he had sighed, and
she had bidden him be a good boy and do his best for the day, leaving
the future in God's hand. "God will give you your work!" she had told
him; and how she and his father had rejoiced together when his
absorption in a box of tools, and his ingenuity therewith, had pointed
out a congenial career. She had prayed and trusted for guidance in
bringing up this dear son, and that being so, she must now believe that
the offered post was the right thing, and that the distant land was just
the very spot of all others where God wished him to be.

When Miles turned to his mother, she had a smile in readiness for him,
and if it were rather tremulous, it was none the less sweet. She would
not allow herself to break down, but threw herself heart and soul into a
study of the Stores' list, which could not be delayed another day,
seeing that it was suggested that Miles should sail in a week's time. A
week! Only one week! Was it really possible that the following day was
the last Sunday which would see a united family circle round the table?

Every female member of the household shed tears on their pillows that
evening, and Betty was convinced that she had lain awake all night long,
because she had actually heard the clock strike one. Mrs Trevor's
vigil was real, not imaginary, and she was thankful when it was time to
get up, and get ready for that quiet early service at church which would
be her best preparation for the week. Her hard-worked husband was
sleeping soundly, and she would not waken him, but a feeling of unusual
sadness and loneliness oppressed her as she made her way through the
silent house. She had depended so much on her big strong boy, had grown
into the habit of