“Are you going to-morrow, papa?” said the little voice in an awed whisper, and Lucy heard a movement as if the curly head snuggled on papa’s shoulder. How good it was of Charlie to tell the child himself! The thought of having to do so had haunted her, for she measured her little lad’s love for his father by what she knew it meant in his life rather than by that childish inadequacy for profound emotion which makes a child such a poignantly pathetic figure when it appears on any tragic scene. “To-morrow!” echoed papa in his brightest tone. “No, indeed, not for many days—two or three weeks! We are going to have such a happy time. We’ll go out and pick up shells, and if there is a very warm sunshiny day with only little waves on the sea, maybe we’ll go out in a boat—that’s if mamma will come with us,” he added, remembering his promised obedience to her discretion. Hugh broke away from his father and ran back into the room. “Oh, mamma,” he cried, “you will let us go out in a boat, won’t you? If the day’s sunshiny—an’ it’s sure to be—and if the waves are ever such little teeny weenies! Oh, mamma, yes!” “We shall see, Hugh. We will do what seems wise. It is time you went to bed.” In commanding her voice to be steady, it sounded sharp and hard. It checked Hugh’s ecstasy, and brought his father out from behind the curtain. She felt that Charlie’s expression was surprised, and that she would break down utterly if she had to meet his eyes. Without looking back, she caught the hand of the silenced and awed Hugh, and hurried him away to the other room. Neither of them spoke while she helped the child undress. Even her eyes did not answer his, though she saw his blue orbs raised wistfully. He knelt down and said his little prayer, the “Our Father,” and the little verse of godly nursery tradition— “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Then he passed on to the extempore petitions, in which he was always allowed free expression. To-night they came with unwonted faltering and hesitation. The child-soul was aware of a disturbed atmosphere around it—of groping somehow in darkness uncertain of itself. “Please, God, bless dear papa—and dear mamma—and dear Pollie—and dear Aunt Florence—and—and dear Mr. Brand—and dear Mrs. May—and make me a good boy. Amen.” “Dear Mrs. May?” Who was that? Lucy had to pause for a moment ere she remembered that this was the name of the landlady, whom the child had seen for the first time two hours before, and who had won his heart by bringing in for him a special tea plate painted with a picture of Walmer Castle! It was only as Hugh stood in his little night-gown, half stepping into the cot, that he said, almost with a whimper— “I never kissed good night to papa.” “Then run away and kiss him now,” said Lucy in her natural tone.