“Didn’t your mother ever talk to you about it?” asked Arthur, remembering the sweet words that had fallen into his own heart; “or your father?”
“I don’t remember my mother,” said Edgar, “and papa died two years ago; but it was two years before that, when I saw him last.”
“Poor Edgar,” said Arthur softly; for, though he did not say this had been a bitter grief to him, there was something in his tone so hopelessly sad and sorrowful, that the tears came into Arthur’s eyes to hear it.
Edgar saw the tears in Arthur’s eyes, and a little faint smile came in his own. “You are very different from the others, Arthur,” he said. “I haven’t had any one kind to me, since papa went to India.”
“Did your father go to India?” Arthur asked brightly. “So did mine. So we are alike, then.”
“Ah, but yours will come back some day, and your mother too; but mine will never, never come back any more!”
“Tell me about them,” said Arthur.
“Well, you know I told you mamma died ever so long ago, so I don’t remember her at all; but papa used to tell me how nice she was, and he used to show me her picture.”
“What kind of a face had she?” asked Arthur. “I wonder whether she was like my mother.”
“Well, she had very nice eyes, brown ones.”