Cecil had grown much. He looked sunburnt and healthy. One arm was thrown up behind his head, the other stretched straight and stiff beside him, ending in a closely clinched little brown fist. His lips, slightly apart, emitted the softly drawn regular breath of profound slumber, and the smile which some pleasant thought had conjured up before he closed his eyes still lingered round his mouth. Katherine longed to kiss him, but feared to break his profound and restful slumbers. She passed to Charlie. His attitude was quite different. He had thrown the clothes from his chest, and his pinky white throat was bare; one little hand lay open on the page of a picture-book at which he had been looking when sleep overtook him; the other was under his soft round cheek; his sweet and still baby face was grave if not sad. He looked like a little angel who had brought a message to earth, and was grieved and wearied by the sin and sorrow here below. Katherine's heart swelled with tenderest love as she gazed upon him, and unconsciously she bent closer till her lips touched his brow. Then a little hand stole into hers, and, without moving, as though he had expected her, he opened his eyes and whispered, "Will you come and kiss me every night, as grannie did?"
"I will, my darling, every night."
"Will grannie never come and kiss me again?"
"Never, Charlie! She will never come to either of us in this life." A big tear fell on the boy's forehead.
"Don't cry, auntie; she loves us all the same." And he kissed the fair cheek which now lay against his own as his aunt knelt beside his bed.
"Go to sleep, dear love; to-morrow you shall take me to see your garden and the pony."
"You will be sure to come?"
"Yes, quite sure."
In a few minutes the clasp of the warm little hand relaxed, and Katherine gently disengaged herself.
"The boys are no longer first in their mother's heart," thought Katherine, as she returned to the drawing-room. "Were they ever first? They are—they might become all the world to me. They might fill my life and give it a fresh aspect. The new ties at which Mr. Newton hinted can never exist for me. Could I accept an honorable man and live with a perpetual secret between us? Could I ever confess? No. My most hopeful scheme is to be a mother to these children. And oh! I do want to be happy, to feel the joy in life that used to lift up my spirit in the old days when we were struggling with poverty! I will throw off this load of self-contempt. I have not really injured any one."