The world outside rested in the unbroken stillness of noon. When nurse was out of sight, I turned to acquaint Stevie with the fact. His eyes were shut. So he remains in my memory, a kneeling statue of monumental whiteness and stillness. A strange way for a little lad to die! Not a sigh, not a stir of hand or body, not a cry, no droop of head or jaw. A long, silent stare upon the sunny land, lids quietly dropped, and then the long unawakeable sleep. To my thinking it was an ideal close to a short life of such unrest and pain and misery. It was indeed rest robbed of all the horrors of death. The horror remained for one who loved him, and this was no blood relative, but an ignorant nurse. Mary Jane's mamma came to see how matters were with the children. Stevie, as I thought, still slept, kneeling with his cheek upon his palm, and elbow resting on a cushion between it and the table. She looked at him quickly, flung up her hands, and trembled from head to foot. Then she bethought herself of me, and ordered me to go and sit with my book in the garden, and keep very still. That was a long afternoon. I thought nurse would never come back. I had looked at all the pictures, spoken to each flower, hunted for ladybirds, and solaced myself with operatic diversion. Now I wanted to go back to Stevie, but the door was shut against me and the blinds were all drawn down, though it was not night--the sun had not even begun to dip westward. Judge my delight to catch the sound of wheels along the road. I raced down to the gate to meet nurse and see all the wonders from town. Grandpa was not with her, and she came up the little path swinging her basket blithely. "They knew the book at once, and I've got it--'tis by a man called Dickens. Your grandpa and mamma will come to-morrow and read it. They're giving a grand party to-night. Such a power of flowers and jellies and things. But the pipes I've brought Stevie in dozens and gingerbread-nuts galore." Then her eye fell upon the blinded windows, and the colour flew from her blooming rustic face. She was nearly as white as Stevie inside. She flung away her basket, and the pipes, the book, and cakes rolled out on the gravel, to my amazement. More wonderful still, she broke out in wild guttural sounds and whirled around in a dance of madness. I had never seen a grown person behave so oddly, and it enchanted me. I caught her skirt and began to spin round too in an ecstasy of shrill sympathy. She looked down at me in a queer wild way, as if she had never seen me before and resented my kindness, and then she cast me from her with such unexpected force that I fell among the flower-beds, too astounded to cry. Decidedly, grown-up people, I reflected, are hard to understand.