Probable Sons | Page 8

of fright if I got away from God. Do tell me I couldn't."
Milly had stopped short, and grasped hold of Sir Edward's coat in her
growing excitement. He glanced at her flushed cheeks and sparkling
eyes.
"You foolish child, there is no fear of your getting away from God.
Don't be so excitable. We will change the subject. I want to see
Maxwell, so we will go through the wood."
Maxwell was Sir Edward's head game-keeper, and a little later found

them at his pretty cottage at the edge of the wood. It was Milly's first
visit, and Mrs. Maxwell, a motherly-looking body, greeted her with
such a sunshiny smile that the child drew near to her instinctively.
"What a lovely room," she exclaimed, looking round the homely little
kitchen with a child's admiring eyes, "and what a beautiful cat! May I
stroke her?"
Assent being given, Milly was soon seated in a large cushioned chair, a
fat tabby cat on her lap, and while Sir Edward was occupied with his
keeper she was making fast friends with the wife.
"Uncle Edward," she said, when they had taken their leave and were
walking homewards, "Mrs. Maxwell has asked me to go to tea with her
to-morrow. May I--all by myself?"
"Ask your nurse; I have no objection."
"I should love to live in her house," continued the child eagerly; "it is
all among the trees, and I love trees. And this wood is so lovely. Why, I
might get lost in it, mightn't I? I have never been here before. In my
story-books, children always get lost in a wood. Uncle Edward, do you
think the trees talk to one another? I always think they do. Look at
them now. They are just shaking their heads together and whispering,
aren't they? Whispering very gently to-day, because it is Sunday.
Sometimes they get angry with one another and scream, but I like to
hear them hum and sing best. Nurse says it's the wind that makes them
do it. Don't you like to hear them? When I lie in bed I listen to them
around the house, and I always want to sing with them. Nurse doesn't
like it. She says it's the wind moaning. I think it's the trees singing to
God, and I love them when they do it. Which do you think it is?"
And so Milly chatted on, and Sir Edward listened, and put in a word or
two occasionally, and on the whole did not find his small niece bad
company. He told her when they entered the house that she could go to
church every Sunday morning in future with him, and that sent Milly to
the nursery with a radiant face, there to confide to nurse that she had
had a "lovely time," and was going to tea as often as she might with

"Mrs. Maxwell in the wood."
CHAPTER IV.
MRS. MAXWELL'S SORROW.
Milly spent a very happy afternoon at the keeper's cottage the next day,
and came down to dessert in the evening so full of her visit that she
could talk of nothing else.
"They were so kind to me, uncle. Mrs. Maxwell made a hot currant
cake on purpose for me, and the cat had a red ribbon for company, and
we sat by the fire and talked when Maxwell was out, and she told me
such lovely stories, and I saw a beautiful picture of the probable son in
the best parlor, and Mrs. Maxwell took it down and let me have a good
look at it. I am going to save up my money and buy one just like it for
my nursery, and do you know, uncle--"
She stopped short, but not for want of breath. Putting her curly head on
one side, she surveyed her uncle for a minute meditatively, then asked,
a little doubtfully:
"Can you keep a secret, Uncle Edward? Because I would like to tell
you, only, you see, Mrs. Maxwell doesn't talk about it, and I told her I
wouldn't--at least, not to the servants, you know."
"I think you can trust me," Sir Edward said gravely.
"This is it, then, and I think it's so wonderful. They have got a real live
probable son."
Sir Edward raised his eyebrows. His little niece continued:
"Yes, they really have. It was when I was talking about the picture Mrs.
Maxwell took the corner of her apron and wiped her eyes, and said she
had a dear son who had run away from home, and she hadn't seen him
for nine years. Just fancy! Where was I nine years ago?"

"Not born."
"But I must have been somewhere," and Milly's active little brain now
started another train of thought, until she got fairly bewildered.
"I expect