“Not from your big brother?” he asked, his pleading eyes on her.
“No, not even from you, you dear boy. It is my problem, Wynn, and I must work it out alone—all alone.”
They had gone back to the porch, and the sight of the extensive grounds around his house prompted him to say:
“I know now why you don't realize Lionel's need for more fresh air. You have that absorbing occupation, and it keeps you from putting yourself in the boy's place, as you might otherwise do.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, quite gravely. “It may be true, Wynn, and yet what am I to do? I really can't bear to have him running about, meeting other children. I could never answer his questions—never, never! Some one would have to watch him, and mother and I both shrink from going out in—in public.”
“I was thinking of that, too,” Dearing replied, “and that is why a certain plan occurred to me. There is that big lot of mine right over the fence. Nothing could possibly happen to him there. It is quiet, and there are many things he could amuse himself with. It is really like a little farm, you know. We have chickens, ducks, turkeys, puppies, kittens, pigs, and horses, and even a cow and a calf about the barn, to say nothing of the pigeons that nest in the hay-loft. To a child, judging by my own memory of boyhood, it would be a regular paradise.”
“You don't mean that you would allow—that you would—” There was a catch in the young mother's voice; a tinge of anxious pallor crept into her appealing face. “Oh, Wynn, you are too kind! You are thinking only of helping me. There is your uncle and your sister—I could not bear to trust my darling where he might not be—wanted.”
“I know my uncle and sister better than you do,” Dearing said. “Margaret has never seen Lionel that I know of, but she would love to make him happy. As for my uncle, he greatly admires the little fellow, and would be delighted to have him come and romp over the place to his heart's content.”
“Oh, how you tempt me!” Dora cried, covering her face with her shapely hands. “Of all things, I can think of nothing right now that I'd like better than that. I have been trying to forget Lionel's confinement in this little yard and house—trying to convince myself that he is wholly happy only with mother and me, but it is no use. It is really pitiful to think of. He has a wonderful imagination, and he sometimes sits here on the porch and tries to picture to himself what the inside of a big house like yours is. He thinks you all must be kings and princes like those in the fairy-tales we read to him. He asked me one day if we'd ever have a home like yours, and when I told him I didn't think so, he answered, 'Then God isn't so very good, after all, is He?' I tried to get him to explain what he meant, but he only shook his head and went to play in the yard.”
At this moment the boy himself came from his grandmother's room, along the passage, and out to them.