The husband and wife had turned now, and faced the house. Joyce looked up, and waved her hand and smiled, that "little pure, white hand," Susan thought, "which poor father said had saved him from despair."
Then the two little girls, in scarlet cloaks and hoods, came with Falcon to announce that they were ready for a walk with mother, and Gilbert asked if he might be permitted to come also.
"Of course," Falcon said; "only we thought you might be tired. Mother told us never to plague you to take us for a walk."
"I am getting quite well, my boy, and it will not be so easy, I hope, to plague me now as it has been lately."
"I've put away the trumpet, father, where I can't possibly see it, for I was afraid if I saw it I should be forced to give a big 'too-te-too.' So mother said, put it away till father is quite well, and then you can blow it in the garden. She wanted to keep it for me, but that was like a baby; now I could get it any minute I wished, only I won't."
Gilbert was half amused, half touched, by this lesson of self-restraint that Joyce had taught her little son, by means of the discordant trumpet, and he patted his head fondly, saying:
"You'll always be right if you follow mother's advice, my boy."
"I know it," Falcon said; "Susan says mother can make every one better."
Joyce and her little daughters were on in front, walking up the village to the churchyard.
Presently they retraced their steps to the village, where an old tree, with a gnarled trunk, stands at the junction of four roads, and was a favourite post of observation to the children.