"That I did not drown!"
"That's where the tune changes," interrupted Matthew Henry, clapping his small sunburnt hands together.
"You know the song then?" asked Vashti, looking from one to the other.
All three nodded. "We know a verse or two," Annet answered. "Mother was always singing it when she rocked Matthew Henry to sleep, and sometimes we get her to sing as much as she can remember for a treat."
"But she can only remember five or six verses," said Linnet; "and her voice is not beautiful like yours."
Annet and Matthew Henry protested. Their mother's was a beautiful voice; one of the most beautiful in the world.
"But not beautiful like hers," Linnet persisted. "I mean that it's quite different."
They admitted this—so much their loyalty allowed them. "And I like the end of the song best," Linnet went on, "because it's cheerfuller. It goes on 'At daybreak she dressed her....'"
But for a moment or two, though she felt the children's eyes fastened on her expectantly, Vashti did not resume the song. Those same expectant eyes were open windows through which she looked into the past, as into a house tenanted by ghosts. Through Annet's, through Linnet's, she saw familiarly, recognising the dim children that played within and beyond the shadow of the blinds. But the child Matthew Henry's frightened her. She and Ruth had lost a brother once. He had died in infancy, a scrap of childhood, almost forgotten.... Yes, Matthew Henry's eyes too had a playroom behind them; and there too a shadowy child played at hide and seek.
Her voice shook a little as she picked up the old song—