With eyes streaming she took up one of the little cork boats, which he kept on the window-stool floating in a wooden bowl.
“You’ll give me one of them, darlin’—to old mammy—for a keepsake.”
“Oh! yes. Choose a good one—the one with the gold paper on the pin; that one sails the best of all.”
“And—and”—she cried bitterly before she could go on—“and this is the little box I’ll put them in,” and she picked them out of the bowl and laid them in a cardboard box, which she quickly tied round. “And this is the last day of poor mammy with her bright only darlin’—for your friends are sending for you to-day, and Mr. Archdale will be here in ten minutes, and you’re to go with him. Oh, my precious—the light o’ the house—and to leave me alone.”
The boy stood up, and with a cry, ran and threw his arms round her, where she stood near the clock.
“Oh! no, no, no. Oh! mammy, you wouldn’t; you couldn’t, you couldn’t.”
“Oh, darlin’, you’re breaking my heart. What can I do?”
“Don’t let me go. Oh, mammy, don’t. Oh, you couldn’t, you couldn’t.”
“But what can I do, darlin’? Oh, darlin’, what can I do?”
“I’ll run away, mammy, I’ll run away; and I’ll come back when they’re gone, and stay with you.”