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"I HAVE A DIFFERENT KIND OF MAMMA TO OTHER BOYS."
"Yes," he continued, hugging his knee and gazing through the window at the turbid waves of the Lough, a lovely inland sea, sending its green waters brimming to the verge of Castle Stewart's old garden. "She sings, you know! She sings—well, just like an angel, people say; but the angels don't have to travel about and leave their little boys at home. Mother makes heaps of money when she sings a song. They send for her right across the world, and she travels like a Princess; the people crowd to see her get into the train. It's always that way if you can sing. Don't you wish you had a voice like an angel, Miss Ainsworth?"
"Yes, indeed."
A sudden, almost painful, longing rang in the reply, as the dazzling picture of a world-famed artiste was conjured up by the simple description of a child.
"I expect," added Miss Ainsworth, "you miss your mother?"
"Why, of course. I wear this picture of her round my neck, and I love her so much I don't mind when other boys call it girlish; one doesn't mind being girlish for her!"
A throb as of martyrdom crept into the child's voice—an almost passionate hunger for the mother-love denied him.