Instead, he knelt stiffly down on one knee, and took the tiny, ringed
hand held out to him. "You wouldn't think a dream beautiful, unless Jim
was in it!"
"Yes I would, if _you_ were in it, dear," she reproached him. "Or Molly.
But Jim was in this dream. I saw him as plainly as I see you both. He
walked in at the door, the way he used to do at home, saying: 'Hello,
Mother, I've been looking for you everywhere!' You know, Father how you
and Jimmy used to feel injured if you called me and I couldn't be found
in a minute. In this dream though, we didn't seem to be back home. I
wasn't sure where we were: only--I was sure----" She stopped, with a
catch in her voice. But Father Beckett took up the sentence where she
let it drop. "Sure of Jim?"
"Yes. He was so real!"
"Well then, Mother darling, I guess the dream ought not to have been
back home, but here, in this very house. For here's where Jim will
come."
"Oh, I do feel that!" she agreed, trying to "camouflage" a tear with a
smile. "Jim's with me all the time."
"Not yet," said Father Beckett, with a stolid gentleness. "Not yet. Not
the real Jim. But he'll come."
"You mean, when Molly and I've finished putting out all his treasures in
the den, just as he'd like to see them?"
"He might come before you get the den ready. He might come--any day
now--even to-morrow." The gnarled brown hand smoothed the small,
shrivelled white one with nervous strokes and passes.
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