"I'm so glad to feel you on my arm again, Hibbert!" said Paul, as he led him to a basket-seat, with cushions, beneath a wide-spreading elm.
"I feel better now than I've felt for a long time, Paul. How I must have wearied people lying up there!"
He glanced in the direction of the school.
"Don't say that, Hibbert. It sounds as though there was no one in the world who cared for you."
"I know it sounds ungrateful; but even when we care for people, we must get weary of them when they're ill a long time. I don't mean you, but the nurse, and doctor, and—other people."
Paul knew that Hibbert was thinking chiefly of his father, who, absorbed in his own schemes, had only been to see him once since his illness—on that afternoon when Mr. Weevil had introduced him to Zuker.
To turn the boy's mind from these sad thoughts, Paul told him some of the latest exploits of Plunger, winding up with his recent discovery of him under the bed in his dormitory. Hibbert was amused and interested.
"Plunger's a funny lot. He makes me smile to think of him. I hope he's never worried himself much about that raft accident?"
"Plunger's not the sort of fellow to worry himself much about anything for long; but he's often asked me about you."
"I was thinking a good deal about what happened on the raft last night. I could not sleep for thinking of it; and then, when I went to sleep, I dreamed—dreamed that my mother was standing by me all in white. She was smiling down at me, and held out her arms to me. I tried to get to her, and in trying to get to her I awoke. Do you know, I was so disappointed! The dream was better than the awaking. I so wished my mother had lived, for then you would have known her, Paul. I'm sure you would have liked her, and that she would have liked you. But perhaps it is best as it is."