"It's Di, Jim," she whispered as she hurried to him. "I waited and waited for you—I knew you were going away and I wanted to say good-bye. Burrow promised that she would let me see you, but she's fast asleep, and so is Mabel. I tried to wake them but I couldn't." The little figure cuddled into his arms.
Jim's heart was very full as he looked at the frail child in the early dawn, the shadows of a restless night showing on her delicately modelled face. He drew her into a window-enclosure, and wrapping the heavy curtains about her, held her fast.
"Say something," the sweet voice coaxed. "I shall miss you so and wait for you to come back. You will come back, won't you?"
Jim's only answer was to press the little head close to his heart. In all the great house, she alone had cared to say good-bye—to wish him in her child's way godspeed.
"See," Diana continued as she opened her arms, "here is something for you to take away with you, so that you sha'n't be lonely any more." She opened her arms and held up the soft roll of fur with its blinking eyes and pink-tipped nose.
"Di, dear Di," Jim whispered, as he patted the towsled hair.
Quite seriously her big eyes searched Jim's face to be sure that her gift truly won approval.
The church clock boomed the hour of five. Jim hurriedly rose and slipped the dog into his coat-pocket.
"Good-bye, Di, and God bless you!"
She clung quietly to him with her arms tight around his neck for a long time; then the little face quivered, and in a burst of tears she sank back among the cushions of the window-seat. Jim hesitated a moment, then with a final pat on the dear head, hurriedly reached the doorway and was out on the high-road. From a turn at the top of the common he caught a last glimpse of the great house, and in the big window of the hall could see the faint outline of the white figure still huddled among the cushions.