"I'm sure it's for the best, though it seems hard to say so. Everything is for the best, Hibbert. We don't see it, because we're only blind people leading the blind. But God sees, and God knows. That's what my mother has told me so often that I've never forgotten it. It has helped me a lot—more than I can tell you. You've talked about your mother, let me tell you a little about my own."
And Paul talked to Hibbert about his own mother. The boy listened eagerly, with one hand resting in Paul's, a smile upon his lips. Suddenly he drew a deep sigh of content; the fragile head fell back upon the chair; the hand in Paul's grew suddenly cold.
Paul looked into the boy's face. The smile still hovered about his lips, but he saw something in the face he had never seen there before.
"Hibbert!" he cried. But there was no response.
Paul gently withdrew his hand and ran to the house. He met Sedgefield, and sent him for the nurse, while he hurried back to Hibbert.
The little fellow was still lying back in the chair. A wren had perched itself lovingly upon his shoulder, but Hibbert knew nothing of its presence. He was fast asleep—in the long, last sleep that knows no waking.
CHAPTER XLV
HOW THE VOTE WAS CARRIED
Hibbert's death caused a lull in the storm that recent events had raised at Garside. Notwithstanding his illness, it was thought that he was getting better. It came, therefore, with a shock to the school when he was found sleeping that afternoon in the garden. The little fellow was laid to rest in a country churchyard, at some distance from the school, by the side of the mother whom he had so loved.