"'tis those he'll leave behind.
Who is going to break it to his mother? She doesn't seem to see it
for herself--though how she can help it is past my understanding."

Poor Miss Patch's hands shook, and her tears fell faster. "I can't,
I can't," she murmured, "but yet--I suppose I ought--there's nobody
else to do it."

It was Charlie himself, though, who saved her that pain. "Mother,"
he said one evening, when she came to get him ready for the night,
"would you be very unhappy if I went away from you?"

"What do you mean?" she cried, in sudden fear. "You--you--"

"Would you, mother?" he persisted.

"Be unhappy! Why, I should break my heart--you are all I have to
care for, or live for, or--"

He put his little wasted arm about her neck, and drew her frightened
face down to his. "Mother, when I go away you will know I am happy--
but Jessie has gone away from her poor old granp and granny, and they
don't know--they think she is very unhappy and badly treated, and--
and, mother, I want you to try and get father to let Jessie go back
to them again, they must be so dreadfully sad about her. I often
think about them--I can't help it--and it makes me feel so sad."
He was silent for a moment. "I wish I could see them," he added
dreamily, "that I could tell them how I love her, and how kind she
has been to me, and--and that she isn't so _very_ unhappy."

Mrs. Lang had stood staring down at him speechless, stricken suddenly
numb and dumb with an awful overwhelming terror.

"Charlie--you--you ain't feeling ill--worse--are you? What's the
matter, dear? Why do you talk so? What do you mean by 'when you go
away'?" Her lips could scarcely form the last words, for she knew as
well as he could tell her. It had come suddenly to her understanding
that he was going a long, long journey--and soon; the last journey,
from which there was no returning.

With a heart-broken cry she fell on her knees by the bed. "You ain't
going, you shan't! Charlie, you shan't go away from me--you must
stay with me till I go too--"

"You will come to me, mother, but I shall go first, and I'll tell God
all about how you have had to work, and how hard it has been for you,
and He will understand--"

"You can't--you mustn't go! Oh, my dear, my dear, don't leave me."

"Oh, mother, I am _so_ tired, and I--I think I want to go, but I want
you to come too. You will, won't you, mother?" and he tried again to
draw her face down to his.

"I