"The day before yesterday, miss."
Young Rumbelow had been home once before during the winter, shortly after his arrival in England—only for twenty-four hours, however. Jane had spoken of the deep joy his visit had given his mother, but she had not seen him herself, so had had little to tell concerning him.
"After this I shan't see him again before he goes abroad," Mrs. Rumbelow continued; "he's going before long, he expects. Yesterday he went into Midbury, and bought me this beautiful chair." She smiled and patted the arm of the wicker arm-chair almost tenderly as she spoke. "'There, mother,' he said, 'you'll be able to rest your poor old bones in comfort in that!' And I shall, I hope. He bought me that picture, too!"
She pointed to a cheap print in a frame over the mantelpiece. It was a likeness of the King of the Belgians.
"I'm so pleased to have it," she said earnestly, "for I call him such a noble man. He has a good, straight face, hasn't he?—the face of one who would keep his word?"
Her visitors assented. She continued—
"I like to think that my boy is on his side. 'Dick,' I said to him last night, when he hung up the picture for me, 'I shall spend many an hour when you're gone sitting here in this beautiful comfortable chair, looking at the likeness of that good king, and thinking of you fighting, like him, for truth and honour—all that's best worth fighting for—aye, and dying for!'"
"What did he say to that?" Josephine asked eagerly.
"Well, you see, miss, I don't think he'd looked at it quite in that light before, so he didn't say anything."
The rain was descending in a deluge now. It lasted for about ten minutes, then ceased almost suddenly.