"I think you needn't count much on Eric, father," put in Darby wisely; "he's nearly always sleeping or crying, and nurse hardly ever lets us touch him. It's because he's delikid, she says. So when you're away there'll just be Joan and me," added the little lad sorrowfully.
Suddenly Joan spoke again, asking a question that awoke afresh the pain at her father's heart—a pain so sharp, so deep-seated as to be at times almost unbearable.
"When you have to go away in the big ship wif the solgers, why did mamsie not stay and take care of us? Other chil'ens has nice lovely muvers. Why have we none, daddy?"
Why, ah, why?
"Does she not love us any more, father?" whispered Darby, in broken, quivering tones—Darby, who remembered his fair young mother as one remembers a pleasing dream.
"Will she never come back no more? Shall we not see her again—never, never?" asked Joan shrilly.
"Listen to me, my darlings," said Captain Dene, in a solemn, earnest voice, after a pause, during which he wondered how he should answer his children's questions. "Mother has gone to live with God in heaven. Her body was tired and worn out, and in a way it had grown too small for the spirit within. And just as you leave off wearing your garments when they grow shabby or small, and father provides you with new things, so mother has left her weary, frail body behind and gone to God, the great and loving Father of all, where she shall be clothed anew."
"But wasn't she put in the ground, father?" asked Darby the doubting. "I 'member quite well seeing a big, long box with brass handles and flowers and wreaths and things, and nurse and Hughes said it was mother."
"You silly!" struck in Joan sharply. "That wasn't weally muver; it was only the bit of her that used to be tired and sick and have headiks. But the thinkin' place and the part of her that used to say 'Joan, darlin',' and 'Darby, my son,' in such a cuddlin' kind of voice, and—and—why, just all the lovin' bit of mamsie is up in heaven!—Isn't I correc', daddy?" she demanded confidently.
"Quite correct, dear," replied the father, fondly kissing the flower-like face upturned to his.