She smiled as the same tremulous answer came now as it had then.
"Why, sing my song! Of course!"
She did not rise as had been her custom, to go to his bedside and hold his hand while she lulled him back to sleep with her low humming, and the blessed consciousness of her nearness. He was a grown man now, and it was broad daylight. But instinctively she felt his need was greater than it had ever been, and her voice took on its tenderest soothing quality as she began to croon the old hymn that had always been his chosen lullaby, when he was tucked to sleep in a little crib bed. "Pilgrims of the Night," she sang:
"'Hark, hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling,
O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore.'"
Glancing across, she saw his drawn face relax a trifle, and he snuggled his thin cheek contentedly against the pillow. High and sweet her voice rose tremulously:
"'Angels of light,
Singing to welcome the pilgrims of the night.'"
The song had many associations for them both. What he was thinking about she could not guess, but when she began the third verse:
"'Far, far away like bells at evening pealing,'"
her own thoughts were back in that time when she rocked in her arms the dearest little son that ever cuddled against a mother's shoulder. She was recalling time after time when she had held him so, telling him good-night stories, listening to his funny little questions and baby confidences, and kissing the dimpled fingers clasped in her own when he knelt to lisp his evening prayer.