"Hush, child! Thy time to die hath not come. Never think it, for it shall not be."
"Nay, Myles, thou canst not daunten Death with thy stern voice and masterful eye, though thou canst quell a score of other foes with one glance."
And Rose, moving her frail little hand toward the sinewy fist clenched upon the bed-covering, slid a finger within its grasp, and went softly on with a pathetic ring of gayety in her voice,—
"I was dreaming, too, of home, mine own old home. I was gathering cowslips in the meadow at St. Mary's, and mother stood by with little Maudlin in her arms. They smiled, both of them, ah how sweetly they smiled upon me, and I filled my pinafore with the cowslips, soft, cool, wet cowslips,—I feel them in my hand now, so cool, so wet! Myles, I fain would have those cowslips, may I not?"
"Child! Child! Thou 'lt break my heart!"
"Mother and Maudlin both died the year I saw thee first, dost remember, Myles?"
"Try to sleep a little, my darling. I will say thee a psalm, or perhaps one of those old Manx ballads thou didst use to lilt so lightly."
"Mistress White says they are ungodly, and a snare of Satan," replied Rose dreamily, and before Myles could utter the wrathful comment that quivered upon his lips she went on,—
"It was across her grave I saw thee, dear, dost mind thee of that hour?"
"Thy mother's grave? ay, I mind me."