I can't--I can't."

And when Jeff recovered his astonishment he saw that his mother had
gone out of the room.

"My bairn, we're going over the water together--you and me--to
England--to your grandmother's."

Old Maggie's nose was rather red, and it seemed to Jeff, not used to
associate her with sentiment, that her voice sounded queer and choky.
What could it all mean?

"Who is going?" he demanded imperatively. "Father and mother, and you
and me, I s'pose?"

"No," said Maggie, beginning to sniff, "your father isn't going."

"Then mother is going, and you too, Maggie, will be there to mend my
clothes," he said in a satisfied way.

"Yes, yes, I'll gang wi' ye, my bairn, my bonnie laddie--I'll no leave
ye in a strange land by yersel'--but not your mother."

Jeff threw a look of extreme disdain towards the guardian of his
wardrobe, and cried out angrily:

"Not mother! I don't believe you, Maggie. You can't know anything
about it. Mother _must_ be going. You know she has never left me
since I was born."

Then he flew to the door and shouted down the passage in a boisterous
way, his pale face growing quite red and angry with excitement.

"Mother, you _are_ going to England. Say you _are_ going, and that
Maggie doesn't know."

No answer came. Perhaps in that short silence a dim presentiment of
the terrible truth was felt by this little boy, so soon to be separated
from all he so fondly loved.

Jeff was soon rattling the door-handle of his mother's room in his
usual impetuous way.

"Mother, mother, open quickly!"

There never was a repulse to that appeal. But the door was opened
without even a gentle word of expostulation, and Jeff was drawn into a
darkened room. The mother had got up from her sofa, for there was a
mark on the cushion where her head had been. She stood in the middle
of the room, now quite still, with her arms thrown about her boy. He
did not see at once how very pale she looked, nor did he notice how her
lips trembled.

"You will not send me away from you, mother. Oh, I will be good. I
will never be naughty or troublesome any more if you will come to
England with me. Mother, I _promise_. I cannot go without you; oh no,
I cannot!"

Jeff was sobbing loudly now. The silence oppressed him. He felt
instinctively that a solemn time had come in his life.

"Do not break my heart, my boy. Come on the sofa and sit beside me,
and I will try and tell you what you must know."

Th