‘Are you come to stay with me?’ cried the boy, raising himself up to look after her, as she moved about the room and stood looking from the window over the trees at the water meadows, now flooded into a lake, and lighted by the beams of a young moon.

‘I can stay till your father is ready for tea,’ said Albinia, coming nearer.  ‘Let me see whether your hands are hot.’

She found her own hand suddenly clasped, and pressed to his lips, and then, as if ashamed, he turned his face away; nor would she betray her pleasure in it, but merely said, ‘Shall I go on with your book!’

‘No,’ said he, wearily turning his reddened cheek to the other side.  ‘I only took it because it is so horrid lying here thinking.’

’I am very sorry to hear it.  Do you know, Gibbie, that it is said there is nothing more lamentable than for a man not to like to have his own thoughts for his company,’ said she, gaily.

‘Ah! but—!’ said Gilbert.  ’If I lie here alone, I’m always looking out there,’ and he pointed to the opposite recess.  She looked, but saw nothing.  ‘Don’t you know?’ he said.

‘Edmund?’ she asked.

He grasped her hands in both his own.  ’Aye!  Ned used to sleep there.  I always look for him there.’

’Do you mean that you would rather have another room?  I would manage it directly.’

’O no, thank you, I like it for some things.  Take the candle—­look by the shutter—­cut out in the wood.’

The boys’ scoring of ‘E. & G. K.,’ was visible there.

‘Papa has taken all be could of Edmund’s,’ said Gilbert, ’but he could not take that!  No, I would not have any other room if you were to give me the best in the house.’

’I am sure not!  But, my dear, considering what Edmund was, surely they should be gentle, happy thoughts that the room should give you.’

He shuddered, and presently said, ‘Do you know what?’ and paused; then continued, with an effort, getting tight hold of her hand, ’Just before Edmund died—­he lay out there—­I lay here—­he sat up all white in bed, and he called out, clear and loud, “Mamma, Gilbert”—­I saw him—­and then—­he was dead!  And you know mamma did die—­and I’m sure I shall!’ He had worked himself into a trembling fit, hid his face and sobbed.

‘But you have not died of the fever.’

’Yes—­but I know it means that I shall die young!  I am sure it does!  It was a call!  I heard Nurse say it was a call!’

What was to be done with such a superstition?  Albinia did not think it would be right to argue it away.  It might be in truth a warning to him to guard his ways—­a voice from the twin-brother, to be with him through life.  She knelt down by him, and kissed his forehead.

‘Dear Gilbert,’ she said, ‘we all shall die.’

‘Yes, but I shall die young.’

’And if you should.  Those are happy who die young.  How much pain your baby-brother and sisters have missed!  How happy Edmund is now!’