All day long the child had spent beside her much-loved mother; now, for another hour, she sat on and talked with her father, receiving good, kind counsel, when Leonard, who had been closeted with his mother, listening to her dear words of best advice, came in, with eyes swollen from crying, and then the four sat together till it was long past bed-time; but what of that? To-morrow, on board ship, there would be nothing to keep them up late, when they could make up for to-night, and go early to bed.
To-morrow came, as happy and sad to-morrows all alike will come; when the mother gave her children their last kisses, the father their last kisses and benedictions, and Sybil and Leonard Graham started on their homeward voyage to England, leaving their parents very grateful for having such good, kind friends to whose care on board ship to entrust them.
Both children were to return at once to their former schools, and spend their holidays together at Mrs. Graham's brother's house, who was also the rector of a country parish, and where she knew they would very soon feel quite at home.
Sybil and Leonard Graham, the children of brave parents, were brave children themselves, and as they had promised not to grieve more then they could help, they at once did battle with their tears, and before long were talking really cheerfully with their friends.
"Who knows," Sybil said once to Leonard, when she and her brother found themselves alone, "but what they might come over for a small holiday-trip in two or three years' time? and if not, I believe when I go out you are to go with me for another 'Peep-show' holiday, and to see them!"
"Of course I ought to go whenever I can," Leonard answered, "as I'm going to be a missionary out there myself."
Sybil had said "them" because she could not yet say, without crying, those two dear, sacred words, father and mother, which stand alone in the vocabulary of every language, and have no peers.
Mrs. Graham herself was then alone, shedding bitter tears, which she had stifled until her children left her, but which she could keep back no longer.
Yet, though her mother's loving heart was very sad and sore, she would not weep long, but would, to the very best of her ability, go forth at once to help her husband—who could not but feel sad now too—in the good work in which she had encouraged him to embark, counting all the costs beforehand.
And Sybil, who had said "I like my father to be a missionary very much," would not unsay the words now, though it took both her parents so far away from her and Leonard. Oh no! since she had seen the great need that there was for missionaries to China, she liked, even better than before, her father "to be a missionary!"