"Yes, thank you," Neil replied, too sick and tired to care for anything just then; and leaning back in the carriage, he closed his eyes wearily, and did not open them again until they were more than half way to Stoneleigh Cottage.
Then Robin, who had been regarding the stranger curiously, laid his little dimpled hand on the thin, wasted one, and said: "Is you s'eep?"
With a start Neil's eyes unclosed, and he looked for the first time on Bessie's children, with such a pain in his heart as he had hoped he might never feel again. Over and over he had said to himself that she should never know how the very thought of them hurt and almost maddened him, and how, in his foolish anger, he had burned the lock of hair which she had sent to him from the head of her first-born. And he said it to himself again, now that he was face to face with the little ones, and though every nerve in his body thrilled at the touch of the soft hand on his, he tried to smile, and said: "No, I am not asleep; I am only tired. What is your name, my little man?"
"Wobin; tree years old. And this is Baby Bessie, and this is Bessie mamma," was the prompt reply; and Neil rejoined: "Yes, I knew your mamma when she was a little girl no bigger than you, and her hands felt just as yours feel."
"I p'ays for you every night when mamma puts me to bed. I say, 'God bless Uncle Neil,'" the child continued.
Then two great tears gathered in the sick man's eyes, but he brushed them away quickly, while Bessie took the boy in her lap and kept him from talking any more.
By this time they were in the road which led from the highway to the house. This had formerly been little more than a lane, but under Bessie's supervision it had been transformed into a broad avenue, bordered with trees and footpaths on either side, and seats beneath the trees, which, though young, had grown rapidly, and already cast cool shadows upon the grass.
"This is the place; that is Stoneleigh Cottage," Bessie said, pointing to the house where Grey was waiting for them, with the boy Neil at his side.
"And this is Neil, my eldest; we think he is like you," Bessie continued, as she alighted from the carriage and presented the child to her cousin.
"Phoo! I ain't a bit like him," was the boy's mental comment, while Neil, the elder said, quickly: "Heaven forbid that he should be like me."