“Why did you go there at all, darling? You know you might have taken a bad cold, though you do not look any the worse.”
“I did not think of that—it was careless,” said the child quickly. “I think I must have been rather silly, for I thought the swallows would go last night, though I know it is not time yet; and I wanted so much to see them fly away that I got up and sat by the nursery window to watch, and then I suppose I went to sleep.”
“You certainly did that, Winnie, and slept so soundly that you never even woke when I carried you back to your little bed.”
Winifred smiled, and looked up half-wistfully into her mother’s face. She was thinking of her dream; but she did not feel as though she could tell it to anybody yet, not until she had thought it all over in her own head first.
“May I get up soon, mamma?”
“Not for another hour or two, I think, darling. Then you shall do so, if you wish.”
For a moment Winifred was disappointed. She wanted to go to the boys’ play-room and tidy their cupboard, and do all the little things for them which she had neglected so long. For one moment her face fell, and the little frown appeared; but then a sudden thought struck her and she smiled bravely.
“Very well, mamma dear, I will do just as you like; only do you think I might sit up a little while, so that I can do things?”
“Yes, Winnie, I think that would not harm you. What makes my little girl so anxious to be busy this morning?”
“Because I think I have been very idle for a long while—ever since I have been ill,” answered Winifred gravely. “Idle and selfish too. I want to be better now for two reasons, partly because I want to be good and do what God would like to see me do, and partly because I should not like people not to miss me, or to think I had been selfish, when I am gone.”