"
"My little brown boy--my little brown boy," said Susan. "I wonder," she
thought bitterly, as she looked at the doctor's sorrowful face, "if you
remember how you spanked him once when he was a baby. I am thankful I
have nothing like that on my conscience now."
The doctor did not remember the old discipline. But before he put on his
hat to go out on his round of calls he stood for a moment in the great
silent living-room that had once been full of children's laughter.
"Our last son--our last son," he said aloud. "A good, sturdy, sensible
lad, too. Always reminded me of my father. I suppose I ought to be proud
that he wanted to go--I was proud when Jem went--even when Walter went
--but 'our house is left us desolate.'"
"I have been thinking, doctor," old Sandy of the Upper Glen said to him
that afternoon, "that your house will be seeming very big the day."
Highland Sandy's quaint phrase struck the doctor as perfectly
expressive. Ingleside did seem very big and empty that night. Yet
Shirley had been away all winter except for week-ends, and had always
been a quiet fellow even when home. Was it because he had been the only
one left that his going seemed to leave such a huge blank--that every
room seemed vacant and deserted--that the very trees on the lawn seemed
to be trying to comfort each other with caresses of freshly-budding
boughs for the loss of the last of the little lads who had romped under
them in childhood?
Susan worked very hard all day and late into the night.
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