"I thought so, father, because you smiled quite differently when you looked at him, and called him your darling much more than you did me, and kissed him—oh! so much oftener."
Sir Everard could have implored the child to stop. He took the thin hand in his and caressed it.
"Miles is such a baby you know. I did not think you would be jealous of him."
"Jealous?" said Humphrey, rather puzzled; "jealous means angry—doesn't it?"
"Well—yes; I suppose it does."
"Oh, then, I wasn't jealous," said the boy, earnestly, "because I never was angry. Poor little Miles couldn't remember mother, you see, and I could—so it was quite fair. Only now and then—sometimes it——"
"What, dear boy?"
"It made me want mother so dreadfully," said Humphrey, his eyes filling with tears. "But now," he added, dreamily, for the drowsiness was beginning to overpower him, again, "I'm going to her, or at least God's going to send her to fetch me." And he closed his heavy eyes.
Sir Everard sat on, meditating. He mused on the by-gone time when his wife had told him Humphrey was as loving as Miles and he had inwardly denied it; he mused on the responsibility of bringing up children, and the necessity of living constantly with them to hope to understand the complications of their characters; and sadly he reflected on the irreparable loss his children had sustained in the mother, who would have done it all so well.