He looked wistfully for another word on this great avowal, but she was really too much stupefied to enter into the purport of the boy’s words, and soon after he left her she fell sound asleep. She had a curious dream, which she remembered long after. She seemed to have identified herself with King Midas, and to be touching all her children, who turned into hard, cold, solid golden statues fixed on pedestals in the Belforest gardens, where she wandered about, vainly calling them. Then her husband’s voice, sad and reproachful, seemed to say, “Magnum Bonum! Magnum Bonum!” and she fancied it the elixir which alone could restore them, and would have climbed a mountain in search of it, as in the Arabian tale; but her feet were cold, heavy, and immovable, and she found that they too had become gold, and that the chill was creeping upwards. With a scream of “Save the children, Joe,” she awoke. No wonder she had dreamt of cold golden limbs, for her feet were really chilly as ice, and the room as dark as at midnight. However it was not yet seven o’clock; and presently Janet brought a light, and persuaded her to come downstairs and warm herself. She was not yet capable of going into the dining-room to the family tea, but crept down to lie on the sofa in the drawing-room; and there, after taking the small refreshment which was all she could yet endure, she lay with closed eyes, while the children came in from the meal. Armine and Babie were the first. She knew they were looking at her, but was too weary to exert herself to speak to them. “Asleep,” they whispered. “Poor Mother Carey.” “Armie,” said Babie, “is mother unhappy because she has got rich?” Armine hesitated. His brief experience of school had made him less unsophisticated, and he seldom talked in his own peculiar fashion even to his little sister, and she added-- “Must people get wicked when they are rich?” “Mother is always good,” said faithful little Armine. “The rich people in the Bible were all bad,” pondered Babie. “There was Dives, and the man with the barns.” “Yes,” said Armine; “but there were good ones too--Abraham and Solomon.” “Solomon was not always good,” said Babie; “and Uncle Robert told Allen it was a fearful responsibility. What is a responsibility, Armie? I am sure Ali didn’t like it.” “Something to answer for!” said Armine. “To who?” asked the little girl. “To God,” said the boy reverently. “It’s like the talent in the parable. One has got to do something for God with it, and then it won’t turn to harm.” “Like the man’s treasure that changed into slate stones when he made a bad use of it,” said Babie. “Oh! Armie, what shall we do? Shall we give plum-puddings to the little thin girls down the lane?” “And I should like to give something good to the little grey workhouse boys,” said Armine. “I should so hate always walking out along a straight road as they do.” “And oh! Armie, then don’t you think we may get a nice book to write out Jotapata in?”