“She is so plucky!” thought Frithiof to himself, with a thrill of admiration. For he was not at all the sort of man to admire helplessness, or languor, or cowardice; they seemed to him as unlovely in a woman as in a man.
At last the actual parting came. Cecil would have liked to go down to the steamer and see the children start, but on thinking it over she decided that it would be better not.
“They will feel saying good-by,” she said, “and it had better be here. Then they will have the long drive with you to the docks, and by that time they will be all right again, and will be able to enjoy the steamer and all the novelty.”
Mr. Boniface was obliged to own that there was sound common-sense in this plan; so in their own nursery, where for nearly five years she had taken such care of them, Cecil dressed the two little ones for the last time, brushed out Gwen’s bright curls, coaxed Lance into his reefer, and then, no longer able to keep back her tears, clung to them in the last terrible parting.
“Oh, Cecil, dear, darling Cecil,” sobbed Lance, “I don’t want to go away; I don’t care for the steamer one bit.”
She was on the hearthrug, with both children nestled close to her, the thought of the unknown world that they were going out into, and the difficult future awaiting them, came sweeping over her; just as they were then, innocent, and unconscious, and happy, she could never see them again.
“Be good, Lance,” she said, through her tears. “Promise me always to try to be good.”
“I promise,” said the little fellow, hugging her with all his might. “And we shall come back as soon as ever we’re grown up—we shall both come back.”
“Yes, yes,” said Cecil, “you must come back.”
But in her heart she knew that however pleasant the meeting in future years might be, it could not be like the present; as children, and as her own special charge, she was parting with them forever.