ery softly. He guessed that she was singing to an audience
of Robin. The bricks had been put away after the departure of Aunt
Beattie, and now Robin was being sung towards sleep. How often would he
be sung to by Rosamund in the future when his father would not be there
to listen!

Robin was going to have his mother all to himself, and Rosamund was
going to have her little son all to herself. But they did not know that
yet. The long months of their sacred companionship stretched out before
the father as he listened to the lullaby, which he could only just hear.
Rosamund had mastered the art of withdrawing her voice and yet keeping
it perfectly level.

When the song was finished, whispered away into the spaces where music
disperses to carry on its sweet mission, Dion went up the stairs, opened
the door of Rosamund's room, and saw something very simple, and, to him,
very memorable. Rosamund had turned on the music-stool and put her
right arm round Robin, who, in his minute green jersey and green
knickerbockers, stood leaning against her with the languid happiness and
half-wayward demeanor of a child who has been playing, and who already
feels the soothing influence of approaching night with its gift of
profound sleep. Robin's cheeks were flushed, and in his blue eyes there
was a curious expression, drowsily imaginative, as if he were welcoming
dreams which were only for him. With a faint smile on his small rosy
lips he was listening while Rosamund repeated to him in English the
words of the song she had just been singing. Dion heard her say:

"Sink to slumber, good-night,
And angels of light
With love you shall fold
As the Christ Child of old."

"There's Fa!" whispered Robin, sending to Dion a semi-roguish look.

Dion held up his hand and formed "Hush!" with his lips. Rosamund
finished the verse:

"While the stars dimly shine
May no sorrow be thine."

She bent and kissed Robin on the top of his head just in the middle,
choosing the place, and into his hair she breathed a repetition of the
last words, "May no sorrow be thine."

And Dion was going to the war.

Robin slipped from his mother's arm gently and came to his father.

"'Allo, Fa!" he observed confidentially.

Dion bent down.

"Hallo, Robin!"

He picked the little chap up and gave him a kiss. What a small bundle
of contentment Robin was at that moment. In South Africa Dion often
remembered just how Robin had felt to hi