Pressing her hand upon her bosom, to still her heart’s unquiet beating, Gabrielle tried to sing one of the old childish songs with which, in days long past, she had been wont to nurse her child asleep. The long silent voice—silent here so many years—awoke again, ringing through the still air with all its former sweetness. Though fainter than it was of old, Bertha heard it, moving through the house; and came to the open window to stand there and listen, smiling to herself to think that Gabrielle could sing again, and half weeping at some other thoughts which the long unheard voice recalled to her. “Oh, mother, I like that,” Willie murmured softly, as the song died away, “it’s like long ago to hear you sing.” They looked into one another’s eyes, both filling fast with tears; then Willie, with childish sympathy, though knowing little why she grieved, laid his arm round her neck, trying with his feeble strength to draw her toward him. She bent forward to kiss him; then hid her face upon his neck that he might not see how bitterly she wept, and he, stroking her soft hair with his little hand, murmured the while some gentle words that only made her tears flow faster. So they lay, she growing calmer presently, for a long while. “Now, darling, you have staid here long enough,” Gabrielle said at last, “you must let me carry you into the house again.” “Must I go so soon mother? See how bright the sun is still.” “But see, too, how long and deep the shadows are getting, Willie. No, my dear one, you must come in now.” “Mother dear, I am so happy to-day—so happy, and so much better than I have been for a long time, and I know it is only because you have let me come out here, and lie in the sunlight. You will let me come again—every day, dear mother?” How could she refuse the pleading voice its last request? How could she look upon the little shrunken figure, upon the little face, with its beseeching, gentle eyes, and deny him what he asked—that she might keep him to herself a few short days longer? “You shall come, my darling, if it makes you so happy,” she said, very softly: then she took him in her arms, and bore him to the house, kissing him with a wild passion that she could not hide. And so for two or three weeks, in the bright, sunny morning, Willie was always laid on his couch in the sheltered corner near the elm trees; but though he was very happy lying there, and would often talk gayly of the time when he should be well again, he never got strong any more. Day by day Gabrielle watched him, knowing that the end was coming very near; but, with her strong mother’s love, hiding her sorrow from him. She never told him that he was dying; but sometimes they spoke together of death, and often—for he liked to hear her—she would sing sweet hymns to him, that told of the heaven he was so soon going to.