She lay with her head on her hand, and the
hollow in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair.
He remembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave
her hair a holiday at night.
How sweet the frills of her night-gown were. He was very glad she was
such a pretty mother.
But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms
moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it
wanted to go round.
"Oh, mother," said Peter to himself, "if you just knew who is sitting
on the rail at the foot of the bed."
Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he
could see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say
"Mother" ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up
at once if it is you that says their name. Then she would give such a
joyous cry and squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but
oh, how exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That I am afraid is
how Peter regarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted
that he was giving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing
can be more splendid, he thought, than to have a little boy of your
own. How proud of him they are; and very right and proper, too.
But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
mother that he has come back?
I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two
minds.
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