John walked nearly to Carsham House with Colonel Maxwell that evening, and came back alone in the sweet summer dusk. When he got home his mother was not in the kitchen; he listened at the foot of the stairs, then called very gently, "Mother, are you there?" for fear of waking Lily. His mother did not seem to hear him, but he could hear her moving about upstairs. Presently, however, she came down, and he could see that she had been crying. For a few minutes they sat in their two chairs, silent; then John said suddenly, "Don't take on so, mother. Is the child asleep?"
"Fast asleep now, dear lamb," said Mrs. Randal. "But it was a long time before she went off, she was that excited, and no wonder. I had to sit by her and sing hymns with my old cracked voice. Dear, dear, she'll have no one to sing her to sleep to-morrow night, I guess."
Mrs. Randal ended with a sob, and dried her eyes again.
"Her father thinks no end of her," said John after a pause.
"Yes, and he does seem like a nice man. But it's a mother's care as she'll miss, that poor little one. He'll have a good nurse for her, I dare say, but that won't be the same thing. I've been just a bit more than an old nurse to Lily. And she'll miss you, John. Her father and her little brothers may be ever so fond, there's not one among 'em all as will be the slave you've been. I almost told Colonel Maxwell as much."
"It couldn't have gone on always, and it's just as well it's happened now," said John, rather doggedly. "If you ask me, I expect we shall miss her more than she'll miss us. At that age they soon forget. But you and me—we shall have a precious dull life of it now, mother."
Mrs. Randal rocked herself gently backwards and forwards.
"Yes, my lad, yes," she said. "It would ha' been better for you, after all, if you'd never seen Lily in your life."
"No, that it wouldn't."
"Yes, yes," his mother persisted. "If it hadn't been for her, poor child, you might have been married to Polly Alfrick long before now, and had a home and a family of your own like other young men of your age. Why, John, my dear, you're nigh on eight-and-twenty."