The eyes, so wonderfully bright and full of the intense light which is not of this world, suddenly drew off, as it were, from looking out into space and fastened themselves on Squib’s face. Seppi smiled a different kind of smile now, but it was a very happy one.
“I am so glad you have come,” he said; “I did so want to see you again. I have something to give you, little Herr. Will you let me?”
“O Seppi, yes. Is it anything I can do for you?”
“Yes; I want you to have Moor,” said Seppi, still panting out his words in the same quick, breathless way. “I want you to have him for your very own. He loves you next best. He would be happy with you. Will you have him?”
“O Seppi, don’t give him away yet; you may want him again,” sobbed Squib, overcome for a moment by the sense of near parting which this request brought home to him.
A quick, strange smile flashed over Seppi’s face, over which a grey shadow was falling.
“No,” he whispered, “I shan’t want him any more; but I love him. He brought you. He will miss me most. Please have him and keep him for me,” and possessing himself of Squib’s hand, Seppi drew it down upon the head of Moor, who had stretched himself upon the bed beside his little master, and who now licked the joined hands of both children, with his eyes full of tears.
“I’ll keep him,” answered Squib, steadying his voice. “He shall come home and live with me. I will make him happy.”
Seppi smiled. It seemed the last little cloud upon his mind. Now that he was satisfied he lay back on his pillows and put out one hand to his mother, the other lying still in Squib’s close clasp upon the head of the dog.
“Tell me about 'He shall give His angels charge,’” he whispered the next moment. Seppi looked at the mother, and the woman looked back at him, and then Squib, suddenly thinking of Herr Adler and some of the things he had said, answered with one of his own bursts of subdued vehemence,—