I won’t say as he knew what he were doing, but I will say as he looked as if he did. And from that minute to the last hour of his life Master Lionel and me was friends fast and firm. Not being a family man, as I have said before, I took to him all the more, and I’m happy to say he did the same by me. When he got big enough to be carried out by his ayah I used to meet the woman, and take him off her hands whenever she would let me; which was often enough, because she knew both the captain and Mrs. Dalgetty knew I was safe to trust. I’d take him off into the shade and walk about with him—him a-layin’ his cheek against my red coat, sometimes laughing at the jokes I’d make with him, suiting them to his size, and sometimes a-staring up at me serious, but both of us always understanding each other and being cheerful, whatever was a-goin’ on betwixt us. The fact was that I got that there used to him, with nursing him so much, that when he’d have a little choke or a disturbance of any kind, I got to be as handy as a woman about settling him and turning him over and patting his back, and though it may sound like a exaggeration to outsiders, I must say as I saw clear enough he had his own way of thanking me and showing me his gratitude for any small favors of the kind. Ay, and many an hour I’ve thought how it might have been if little Maggie Shea had got through that blazing summer—many and many an hour as I walked up and down, him nestling up against me as my own flesh and blood might have done, but never would. So we began by being fond of one another, and we keeps on a-bein’ fond of one another, and what’s more, we gets fonder and fonder of each other as we grows older. And such a boy as he were, and such ways as he had! There weren’t no end to him, he were that manly and handsome and well-grown and ready, by the time he were seven or eight year old. People as never looked at a child looked at him and was took by him, and the ladies at the station run wild about his beauty. Tall he was and well set up, and with a way of carrying himself a brigadier-general might have been proud of. And a fine-cut face, and a big, brave black eye as looked at a man as if he was equal to leading a regiment; and yet was thoughtful and loving, and had a softness, too, when he was talking to a friend. And that quick he were to notice things as others of his age would never have seen. Why, he was only six years when one day, as he was standing by watching me at work, he looks up at me all at once and says he: “Rabbett,” he says, “my mamma is very pretty, isn’t she?” “Well,” says I, “Master Lionel, I should say she _were_!” “I thought so,” he says; “I thought everybody must think she was pretty, just as I do, only I am very fond of her, you see.” And he rather puzzles me by looking at me again in a wistful, questioning sort of way. “Just so, Master Lionel,” I answers, “just so, sir.”