“He told me a lot of things to tell you about myself, but I shan’t repeat them, as I don’t think I behaved any better than hundreds of others that I saw around me. I could not help crying when they took him from his cot by my side; for from the way he told me good-by, I saw that he did not expect ever to see me again. No brother was ever kinder than he has been to me. The last thing he said to me was to give his dear, dear love to you (those were his words), and to say that he relied on you to keep your promise. I asked him what promise, but he said never mind, she will remember.”
In conclusion, Edmund besought his mother to come on to see him. Miss Mary was as good as could be, but, after all, one’s mother was different, etc., etc., etc.
“What promise could he have alluded to?” asked Alice.
“That is just what I asked mother,” said Lucy. “Do you believe in presentiments, Alice? I do; and when mother told me what her promise to the Don was” (here Charley, who had not spoken a word, rose and left the room), “I was filled with dreadful forebodings. You know that during the latter part of his stay down in the country, before joining the army, the Don spent a great deal of his time with us. One afternoon we were taking a little stroll, before tea, Mr. Frobisher walking with me, and, some distance behind us, the Don, with mother. She stopped at our family cemetery to set out some plants; and she tells me that it was on this occasion that she made him the promise in question.
“She says that when she pointed out to him the spot that she had selected for her own resting-place, he looked down for some time, and then said that he had a favor to ask her.
“‘I am to join the army, next week,’ said he.
“‘Well?’ said she.
“‘There is no fighting without danger,’ said he. ‘Suppose I should fall?’
“‘Oh, I hope not!’ said mother.
“‘Yes; but in case I do? This, you say, is the spot you have chosen for yourself. If I fall—would you give me two yards of earth just here, at your feet? I would not be in the way there, would I?’ Mother makes a longer story of it, and an affecting one. When she gave him her word (mother took the greatest fancy to the Don from the first day she saw him) she says he was more deeply moved than she should have thought it possible for a big, strong man to be by such a thing. This is the promise he alludes to; and I have a painful presentiment that—”