The great garden at Otrada—the garden of my girlhood—glowed in all its summer splendor, and Tioka ran before me with cries of joy at everything he saw.
“Look at the water! Look at the little bridge! Did you play here when you were little? Were you ever really little?” He looked at me doubtfully. “I mean really quite little—like Tania.”
The mention of his sister's name was like a blow to my heart. But Tioka was already flying across the lawn.
“Oh,” he cried. “There's the swing! I had forgotten there was a swing! Hurrah!”
“Hush, hush, dearest,” I warned; “don't disturb grandmama who is ill.”
He swung backwards and forwards, careless and handsome, shaking his blond hair in the wind.
“Grandmama cannot hear me; she is fast asleep still. And besides she is not ill any more now that we are here; otherwise grandpapa would not have gone to Kieff to-day.” Tioka jumped down from the swing and raised his face to me with adorable seriousness. “Tell me, mother, when one is ill with nervousness doesn't that mean that you want something you haven't got? Then if you get it you are well again, aren't you? Grandmama wanted us. We came. And now she is cured.” After a pause he went on: “I think I am ill with nervousness too. I am nervous for a bowl of goldfish; and for a hunting dog like that one,” he added, indicating a large setter lying stretched in the sun with his muzzle on his paws.
“Why, that is Bear!” I cried, “our old Bear.” I bent down to caress him. “Dear Bear, good Bear! Don't you recognize me?”
Bear raised his languid, blood-shot eyes, but did not stir.
“How sad he looks,” I said, touching his muzzle to see whether his nose was hot. “Perhaps he is ill.”