en as he sat very close to her, clasping her thin hands in his own
feverish little fingers, she told him why it must be. Jeff knew quite
well that a great many children were sent to England from this station
in the plains and that they never came back. He had lost many little
companions in this way, not when they were quite babies, but just after
they began to run about and to grow amusing. There were none as old as
he was left here.

When his gentle mother began to remind him of the last summer's heat,
and recalled how he sickened and drooped in the sultry breathless days,
he remembered all he had suffered and how very tired and languid he
felt. Now the summer would soon be here again, for it was the end of
March already, and the doctor had said that if Jeff was not sent away
to a cooler climate he would certainly die.

"We are not rich, my darling, your father and I, and he must stay here
this year through the summer. I could not take you up to the hills as
I did last year when you were so ill. You are everything to me--you
are all I have got, my darling--" her voice broke a little. "You would
certainly get ill again, and you might even leave me altogether--you
might die--if I kept you here. Your grandmama knows my trouble, and
she has written to ask me to send you to her. You will live with them
all at Loch Lossie till some day we can come home." The pretty lady
sighed and pushed her soft brown hair away from her forehead.

"Two or three years, Jeff, my darling, will pass soon--to you and me.
I shall hope to hear that you are growing strong and well, and that you
are mother's own brave lad, waiting patiently till she is able to meet
you again. Be a man--do not grieve me now, my own little lad, by any
tears. There are many things I want to say to you before you go, and
if you cry--well--I cannot say them."

The little boy's face was quite hidden on his mother's knee. She felt
him sob once or twice, and then all was quite still in this great shady
room. So still that at last the poor mother thought her noisy active
Jeff must have fallen asleep. Her hand was resting on his head, while
her beautiful sad eyes gazed through the open window and across the
parched bit of garden towards the high hills far away. Oh! if only she
could take her child up there to the mountains and rest peacefully with
him near the melting snows, and see the colour come back to his pale
cheeks in the beautiful green gardens. Sh