From the night they brought him home from Dr. Blimber’s Paul had never risen from his little bed.  He lay there, listening to the noises in the street, quite tranquilly; not caring much how the time went, but watching it, and watching everywhere about him with observing eyes.

When the sunbeams struck into his room through the rustling blinds, and quivered on the opposite wall like golden water, he knew that evening was coming on.

By little and little he got tired of the bustle of the day, the noise of the carriages and carts, and people passing and repassing; and would fall asleep or be troubled with a restless and uneasy sense of a rushing river.  “Why will it never stop, Floy?” he would sometimes ask her.  “It is bearing me away, I think!”

But Floy could always soothe him.

He was visited by as many as three grave doctors, and the room was so quiet, and Paul was so observant of them, that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches.  But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps; for Paul had heard them say long ago that that gentleman had been with his mamma when she clasped Florence in her arms and died.  And he could not forget it now.  He liked him for it.  He was not afraid.

The people in the room were always changing, and in the night-time Paul began to wonder languidly who the figure was, with its head upon its hand, that returned so often and remained so long.

“Floy,” he said, “what is that—­there at the bottom of the bed?”

“There’s nothing there except papa.”

The figure lifted up its head and rose, and said, “My own boy!  Don’t you know me?”

Paul looked it in the face, and thought, was that his father?  The next time he observed the figure at the bottom of the bed, he called to it.

“Don’t be sorry for me, dear papa.  Indeed, I am quite happy.”

That was the beginning of his always saying in the morning that he was a great deal better, and that they were to tell his father so.

How many times the golden water danced upon the wall, how many nights the dark, dark river rolled towards the sea, Paul never counted, never sought to know.

One night he had been thinking of his mother, and her picture in the drawing-room downstairs.

“Floy, did I ever see mamma?”

“No, darling.”

The river was running very fast now, and confusing his mind.  Paul fell asleep, and when he awoke the sun was high.

“Floy, come close to me, and let me see you.”

Sister and brother wound their arms around each other, and the golden light came streaming in, and fell upon them locked together.

“How fast the river runs between its green banks and the rushes, Floy!  But it’s very near the sea.  I hear the waves.  They always said so.”

Presently he told her that the motion of the boat upon the stream was lulling him to rest, now the boat was out at sea but gliding smoothly on.  And now there was a shore before him.  Who stood on the bank?