“Ronald!” said a very sweet and gentle voice.
And then all the clouds seemed suddenly to roll away and the confusion to melt away like summer snow. The child looked up with a glad, sweet smile and said,—
“Mother dear, you have come at last. I knew you must be coming.”
The mother bent and kissed her child, as she had done so many times whilst he had lain asleep. He seemed to know it now.
“You used to kiss me like that in my dreams,” he said. “I did not want to wake because the dreams were so nice.”
The Squire was about to withdraw and leave them together, but Bertie saw the movement, and noted, too, the expression on the face he loved so well.
“Papa,” he said, holding out his hand,—“papa, don’t go, please. We both want you. Nothing is quite right without you now; and I know mother will always let me be your little boy too.”
“Mother,” said Bertie, later on, in one of those little confidences that they held from time to time during the days of his convalescence, “I’ve learned now what you used to tell me so often—about God’s taking care of us always. I used not to care about it much till I lost you and was so lonely. I thought He’d forgotten me then; but I’m sure now He hadn’t. He didn’t forget you either, did He, mother dear?”
“No indeed,” answered Mrs. Arbuthnot, gently. “He has been very, very good to me. Once He seemed to take away all that made my life glad; but He has restored it all fourfold now.”
Bertie’s face expressed a vivid interest and animation.