A great silent change, not the less a development, had been and was passing in the major. Mark not only was an influence on him altogether new, but had stirred up and brought alive in him a thousand influences besides, not merely of things hitherto dormant in him, but of memories never consciously, operant—words of his mother; a certain Sunday-evening with her; her last blessing on his careless head; the verse of a well-known hymn she repeated as she was dying; old scraps of things she had taught him; dying little Mark gave life to these and many other things. The major had never been properly a child, but now lived his childness over again with Mark in a better fashion.
"I have had such a curious, such a beautiful dream, majie!" he said, waking in the middle of one night. The major was sitting up with him: he was never left alone now.
"What was it, Markie?" asked the major.
"I should like Corney to hear it," returned Mark.
"I will call him, and you can then tell it us together."
"Oh, I don't think it would do to wake Corney up! He would not like that! He must hear it sometime—but it must be at the right time, else he would laugh at it, and I could not bear that. You know Corney always laughs, without thinking first whether the thing was made for laughing at!"
By this time Corney had been to see Mark often. He always spoke kindly to him now, but always as a little goose, and Mark, the least assuming of mortals, being always in earnest, did not like the things he wanted "to go in at Corney's ears to be blown away by Corney's nose!" For Corney had a foolish way of laughing through his nose, and it sounded so scornful, that the poor child would not expose to it what he loved. Hence he was not often ready to speak freely to Corney—or to another when he was within hearing distance.
"But I'll tell you what, majie," he went on "—I'll tell you the dream, and then, if I should go away without having told him, you must tell it to Corney. He won't laugh then—at least I don't think he will. Do you promise to tell it to him, majie?"
"I will," answered the major, drawing himself up with a mental military salute, and ready to obey to the letter whatever Mark should require of him.
Without another word the child began.