“How are they?” said the little girl, coming very close to his side, and looking up at him with her wet eyes. “Oh, how can they be?” said Paul; “my mother is worn out, she cannot feel it yet: and Alice is with her night and day.” “Will they come?” said Dolly, with a sob in her voice. “I fear so; it is too much for them. But I am afraid they will come, whatever I may say.” “Oh, don’t you think it is best? Then they will feel that they have not left him, not for a moment, nor failed him, as long as there was anything to do.” “But that makes it all the worse when there is nothing to do. I fear for my mother.” “She has got you, Paul--and the children.” “Yes, me; and I did not come till the last. Did you hear that, Dolly?--that I wasted all the time when he was dying, and was only here the last day?” “Dear Paul,” said Dolly, giving him her hand again, “you did not mean it. Do you think he does not know now? Oh, you may be sure he understands!” she cried, with that confidence in the advancement of the dead above all petty frailties which is so touching and so universal. “I hope so,” Paul said, with quivering lips; and as he stood here, with this soft hand clasping his, and this familiar, almost childish, voice consoling him, Paul felt as if he had awakened out of a dream. This was the place he belonged to, not the squalid dream to which he had given himself. Standing under those beautiful trees, with this soft, fair innocent creature comprehending and consoling him, there suddenly flashed before his eyes a vision of a narrow street, the lamp-post, the children shouting and fighting, and another creature, who did not at all understand him, standing close by him, pressing her advice upon him, looking up at him with eager eyes. A sudden horror seized him even while he felt the softness of Dolly’s consoling touch and voice. It quickened the beating of his heart and brought a faintness of terror like a film over his eyes. “Come and sit down,” said Dolly, alarmed. “You are so pale. Oh, Paul, sit down, and I will run and bring you something. You have been shutting yourself up too much; you have been making yourself ill. Oh, Paul! you must not reproach yourself. You must remember how much there is to do.” “Do not leave me, Dolly. I am going to speak to the rector. I am not ill--it was only a sudden recollection that came over me. I have not been so good a son as I ought to have been.” “Oh, Paul! he sees now--he sees that you never meant it,” Dolly said. “Do you think _they_ are like us, thinking only of the outside? And you have your mother to think of now.” “And so I will,” he said, with a softening rush of tears to his eyes. “Come in with me, Dolly.”