look for my top; I didn't take any of the nests," he
continued, mentioning the most valuable things he had been amongst,
according to his own opinion.

His grandmother had let go his hand and raised herself upright; her eyes
were on the bit of gold band. "What's that?" she said faintly.

"It's nothing particular," said Peter, unwinding it slowly from his
hand, and humbly giving it up. "It's nothing but a little sort of a gold
band and an ornament that I found stuck in a tree." Then Peter,
observing by her silence how high his misdemeanour had been, began to
sob a little, and then to make a few excuses, and then to say he hoped
his grandmother would forgive him.

No answer.

"I wish I hadn't done it," he next said. He felt that he could not say
more than that, and he looked up at her. She was not regarding him at
all, not attending to what he had said, her face was very white, she was
clutching the bit of gold lace in her hand, and her wide-open eyes were
staring at something above his head.

"Peter! Peter! Peter!" she cried again, in a strangely sharp and ringing
voice. It seemed as it she would fall, and Peter caught hold of her arm
and held her, while the thought darted through his mind, that perhaps
she had called him at first because she was ill, and wanted him to hold
her, not because she had observed his visit to the garden. He felt sure
she could hardly stand, and he was very much frightened, but in a moment
the nurse, having heard her cry, came running out, and between them they
guided her to her chair in the alcove.

"I'm very sorry, grandmother," Peter sobbed, "and really, really I
didn't take any nests or lilies or anything at all, but only that bit of
stuff. I'll never do it again."

As he spoke he saw his mother and aunt coming up with looks of grief and
awe, and on looking into his grandmother's face he beheld, child that he
was, a strange shadow passing over it, the shadow of death, and he
instinctively knew what it was.

"Can't you move poor grandmother out of the sun?" he sobbed. "Oh do! I
know she doesn't like it to shine in her eyes."

"Hush! hush!" his mother presently found voice enough to say amid her
tears. "What can it signify?"

After that Peter cried very heartily because everybody else did, but in
a little while when his grandmother had been able to drink some cordial,
and while they were rubbing her cold hands, she opened her eyes, and
then he thought perhaps she was going to get