wet earth.  Jack tried to brush it off with his hands and made a mess of it, but she did not seem to notice, looking across the garden with such a desolate face, that when he saw it he burst into tears.  For once mother let him cry himself out without seeking to comfort him; when he sniffed dolefully, his nostrils were full of the scent of crushed marigolds.  He could not help watching her hands through his tears; it seemed as though they were playing together at cat’s-cradle; they were not still for a moment.  But it was her face that at once frightened and interested him.  One minute it looked smooth and white as if she was very cross, and the next minute it was gathered up in little folds as if she was going to sneeze.  Deep down in him something chuckled, and he jumped for fear that the cross part of her had heard it.  At intervals during the evening, while mother was getting him his supper, this chuckle returned to him, between unnoticed fits of crying.  Once she stood holding a plate in the middle of the room for quite five minutes, and he found it hard to control his mirth.  If father had been there they would have had good fun together, teasing mother, but by himself he was not sure of his ground.  And father did not come back, and mother did not seem to hear his questions.

He had some tomatoes and rice-pudding for his supper, and as mother left him to help himself to brown sugar he enjoyed it very much, carefully leaving the skin of the rice-pudding to the last, because that was the part he liked best.  After supper he sat nodding at the open window, looking out over the plum-trees to the sky beyond, where the black clouds were putting out the stars one by one.  The garden smelt stuffy, but it was nice to be allowed to sit up when you felt really sleepy.  On the whole he felt that it had been a pleasant, exciting sort of day, though once or twice mother had frightened him by looking so strange.  There had been other mysterious days in his life, however; perhaps he was going to have another little dead sister.  Presently he discovered that it was delightful to shut your eyes and nod your head and pretend that you were going to sleep; it was like being in a swing that went up and up and never came down again.  It was like being in a rowing-boat on the river after a steamer had gone by.  It was like lying in a cradle under a lamplit ceiling, a cradle that rocked gently to and fro while mother sang far-away songs.

He was still a baby when he woke up, and he slipped off his chair and staggered blindly across the room to his mother, with his knuckles in his eyes like a little, little boy.  He climbed into her lap and settled himself down with a grunt of contentment.  There was a mutter of thunder in his ears, and he felt great warm drops of rain falling on his face.  And into his dreams he carried the dim consciousness that the thunderstorm had begun.

II