“My Lady! my Lady! what have you, I pray you tell me? You look as if sentence of death had been passed on you!”
Margery passed her hand dreamily across her brow.
“Sentence, good Alice, of the evil which is in death!” she said, softly, “and henceforth death must needs be a glad thing. But that is to come yet.”
She sat down, and took the child on her knee, and he nestled his little golden head into her bosom. For a few minutes she rocked herself and him to and fro in silence, but at length her voice came, and though it trembled a little, it was almost as quiet and silvery as usual.
“Geoffrey, dost love me?”
“Yes, mother, very much.”
“Poor child! how wilt do without me!”
“Go you hence, mother?”
“Yes, my child, I go hence. Geoffrey, wilt mind ever what I now say unto thee? Wilt never, never forget it, but ever keep it fresh and shene, and think thereof whenever thou dost think of me?”
“Yes, mother, I shan’t forget.”