"I don't know, sir. But God knows, you may depend."
"It seems hard on Jack—his name is Jack. I am to go and see him when he is in bed. He asked me."
There was a short silence, broken at length by Theodore.
"The house will seem different now they are come. And I think father looks different already,—somehow I think he looks gladder."
Jane made no reply. Presently Theodore went to the door and listened. He knew a room had been prepared, not far from his own, for his stepbrother, and he wondered if he was yet in bed. He ventured out into the passage, and crept cautiously along it. Before a half-closed door he paused, and peeped in. Jack was in bed, his mother standing by his side, whilst in a low, sweet voice she sang to him:
"At even, ere the sun was set,
The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay;
Oh! in what diverse pains they met!
Oh! with what joy they went away!"
She sang the hymn through to the last verse; and when it was finished she looked around, and saw the little figure in the doorway, watching.