-I wish
Pierson were not going to be married."

Pierson was the nurse we had just then--she was going to be married in a
fortnight, but we didn't much care. She had only been about a year with
us, and we counted her rather a grumpy nurse. She always thought that we
should catch cold if we ran into the garden without being all muffled
up, or that we should break our necks even if we climbed _tiny_ trees.

"I don't know," said papa. "She would never have got on with Partridge.
A younger one would be better."

"Perhaps," said mother. But her tone had grown dreadfully low and sad
again. It almost seemed as if she could not speak at all. Only in a
minute or two I heard her say again, still _worse_ than before, "Oh, my
darlings! Oh, Horace, I don't think I _can_ bear it. Think of dear
little Racey, and my pretty Tom, and poor Audrey--though I don't know
that she is naturally so affectionate as the boys--think of them all,
Horace--alone without us, and us _so_ far away."

"I know," said papa, sadly. "I know it all. It is terribly hard for you.
But let us try not to talk any more about it this evening. To-morrow you
may feel more cheerful--I don't know about Audrey not being so
affectionate as the boys," he added, after a little pause; "perhaps it
is that she's older and more reserved. They are such little chaps. She's
very good and motherly to them any way, and that's one comfort."

"Indeed it is," said mother. "She's a queer little girl, but she's very
good to the boys. We must go down-stairs now," she went on, "and I must
send Pierson to carry Racey to his own bed. I am so afraid of waking
Audrey and Tom, perhaps I had better carry him myself."

She came towards my bed as she spoke, and after seeming to hesitate a
little, stepped close up to the side. Poor mother! I didn't understand
it then, but afterwards, when I thought over that strange evening, as I
so often did, I seemed to know that she had been _afraid_ of looking at
us--that she could not bear to see our happy sleeping faces with what
she knew, in her heart. It is funny, but lots of things have come to me
like that. I have remembered them in my mind without understanding them,
like parrot words, with no meaning, and then long afterwards a meaning
has come into them, and that I have never forgotten. It was a little
that way with what I overheard that evening--the meaning that came into
it all afterwards made such a mark on my mind that even though I may not
hav