William's eyes sparkled. He fully believed it all. Boys are sanguine.
They were to dine at three o'clock, and Jane did her best to prepare it. During the process, Patience appeared at the back door with a plate of oranges. "Will thee accept of these for thy children?" asked she.
"How kind you are!" exclaimed Jane, in a grateful impulse, as she thought of her children. Of such little treats they had latterly enjoyed a scanty share. "Patience, I hope you did not buy them purposely?"
"Had I had to buy them, thee would not have seen them," returned the candid Quakeress. "A friend of Samuel Lynn's, who lives at Bristol, sends us a small case every winter. When I was unpacking it this morning I said to him, 'The young ones at the next door would be pleased with a few of these'; but he did not answer. Thee must not think him selfish; he is not a selfish man; but he cannot bear to see anything go beside the child. Anna looked at him eagerly; she would have been pleased to send half the box: and he saw it. 'Take in a few, Patience,' he cried."
"I am much obliged to him, and to you also," repeated Jane. "Patience, Mr. Halliburton is so much better to-day! Go in, and see him."
Patience went into the parlour, carrying the oranges with her. When she came out again there was a grave expression on her serene face.
"Thee will do well not to count upon this apparent improvement in thy husband."
Jane's heart went down considerably. "I do not exactly count upon it, Patience," she confessed; "but he does seem to have changed so much for the better that I feel in greater spirits than I have felt this many a day. His cough seems almost well."
"I do not wish to throw a damp upon thee; still, were I thee, I would not reckon upon it. These sudden improvements sometimes turn out to have been deceitful. Fare thee well!"
Jane went into the parlour. The children were gathered round the plate of oranges. "Mamma, do look!" cried Janey. "Are they not good? There are six: one apiece for us all. I wonder if papa could eat one? Gar, you are not to touch. Papa, could you eat an orange?"
Unseen by the children, Mr. Halliburton had been straining his eager gaze upon the oranges. His mouth parched with inward fever, his throat dry, they appeared, coming thus unexpectedly before him, what the long-wished-for spring of water is to the fainting traveller in the desert. Jane caught the look, and handed the plate to him. "You would like one, Edgar?"
"I am thirsty," he said, in tones savouring of apology, for the oranges seemed to belong to the children rather than to him. "I think I must eat mine before dinner. Cut it into four, will you?"
He took up one of the quarters. "It is delicious!" he exclaimed. "It is so refreshing!"
The children stood around and watched him. They enjoyed oranges, but scarcely with a zest so intense as that.
When Jane returned to the kitchen, she found a helpmate. The maid from next door, Grace, a young Quakeress, fair and demure, was standing there. She had been sent by Patience to do what she could for half an hour. "How considerate she is!" thought grateful Jane.
They dined in comfort, Grace waiting on them. Afterwards the oranges were placed upon the table. Master Gar caught up the plate, and presented it to his mother. "Papa has had his," quoth he.
"Not for me, Gar," said Jane. "I do not eat oranges. I will give mine to papa."
The three younger children speedily attacked theirs. William did not. He left his by the side of the one rejected by his mother, and set the plate by Mr. Halliburton.
"Do you intend these for me, William?"
"Yes, papa."
Frank looked surprised. "William, you don't mean to say you are not going to eat your orange? Why, you were as glad as any of us when they came."
"I eat oranges when I want them," observed William, with an affectation of carelessness, which betrayed a delicacy of feeling that might have done honour to one older than he. "I have had too good a dinner to care about oranges."
Mr. Halliburton drew William towards him, and looked steadfastly into his face with a meaning smile. "Thank you, my darling," he whispered: and William coloured excessively as he sat down.
Mr. Halliburton ate the oranges, and appeared as if he could have eaten as many more. Then he leaned his head back on the pillow which was placed over his chair, and presently fell asleep.
"Be very still, dear children," whispered Jane.
They looked round, saw why they were to be still, and hushed their busy voices. William pulled a stool to his mother's feet, and took his seat on it, holding her hand between his.
"Papa will soon be well again now," he softly said. "Don't you think so, mamma?"
"Indeed I hope he will," she answered.
"But don't you think it?" he persisted; and Jane detected an anxiety in his tone. Could there have been a shadow of fear upon the boy's own heart? "He said mamma, whilst you were at church, that in another month he should be strong again."
"Not quite so soon as that, I fear, William. He has been so much reduced, you know. Later: if he goes on as well as he appears to be going on now."
Jane set the children to that renowned game. "Cross questions and crooked answers." You may have had the pleasure of playing it: if so, you will remember that it consists chiefly of whispering. It is difficult to keep children quiet long together.
"Where am I?" cried a sudden voice, startling the children in the midst of their silent whispers.
It came from Mr. Halliburton. He had slept about half an hour, and was now looking round in bewilderment, his head starting away from the pillow. "Where am I?" he repeated.
"You have been asleep, papa," cried Frank.
"Asleep! Oh, yes! I remember. You are all here, and it is Christmas Day. I have been dreaming."
"What about, papa?"
Mr. Halliburton let his head fall back on the pillow again. He fixed his eyes on vacancy, and there ensued a silence. The children looked at him.
"Singular things are dreams," he presently exclaimed. "I thought I was on a broad, wide road—an immense road, and it was crowded with people. We were all going one way, stumbling and tripping along–"
"What made you stumble, papa?" interrupted Janey, whose busy tongue was ever ready to talk.
"The road was full of impediments," continued Mr. Halliburton, in a dreamy tone, as if his mental vision were buried in the scene and he was relating what had actually occurred. "Stones, and hillocks, and brambles, and pools of shallow water, and long grass that got entangled round our feet: nothing but difficulties and hindrances. At the end, in the horizon, as far as the eye could reach—very, very far away indeed—a hundred times as far away as the Malvern Hills appear to be from us—there shone a brilliant light. So brilliant! You have never seen anything like it in life, for the naked eye could not bear such light. And yet we seemed to look at it, and our sight was not dazzled!"
"Perhaps it was fireworks?" interrupted Gar. Mr. Halliburton went on without heeding him.
"We were all pressing on to get to the light, though the distant journey seemed as if it could never end. So long as we kept our eyes fixed on the light, we could see how we walked, and we passed over the rough places without fear. Not without difficulty. But still we did pass them, and advanced. But the moment we took our eyes from the light, then we were stopped; some fell; some wandered aside, and would not try to go forward; some were torn by the brambles; some fell into the water; some stuck in the mud; in short, they could not get on any way. And yet they knew—at least, it seemed that they knew—that if they would only lift their eyes to the light, and keep them steadfastly on it, they were certain to be helped, and to make progress. The few who did keep their eyes on it—very few they were!—steadily bore onwards. The same hindrances, the same difficulties were in their path, so that at times they also felt tempted to despair—to fear