"I should like to see my little brother, papa—if I may," I said.
He paused thoughtfully for a few minutes, then answered:
"I am quite sure you may, Laura; I will take you."
We went, without making even the faintest sound, to the pretty rooms that had been set aside as nurseries. One of them had been beautifully decorated with white lace and flowers. There in the midst stood the berceaunette in which I had lain when I was a child.
My father took me up to it—at first I saw only the flowers, pale snowdrops and blue violets with green leaves; then I saw a sweet waxen face with closed eyes and lips.
Oh! baby brother, how often I have longed to be at rest with you! I was not frightened; the beautiful, tiny face, now still in death, had no horrors for me.
"May I kiss him, papa?" I asked. Oh, baby brother, why not have stayed with us for a few hours at least? I should like to have seen his pretty eyes and to have seen him just once with him lips parted; as it was, they were closed in the sweet, silent smile of death.
"Papa, what name should you have given him had he lived?" I asked.
"Your mother's favorite name—Gerald," he replied. "Ah, Laura, had he lived, poor little fellow, he would have been 'Sir Gerald Tayne, of Tayne Abbey.' How much dies in a child—who knows what manner of man this child might have been or what he might have done?"
"Papa, what is the use of such a tiny life?" I asked.