“How beautiful, mother!  It is the most delightful thing in all the world to be alone with you, mummy.”

“Well, bring your little chair and sit near me, Iris.  Fortune will bring in tea in a moment, and you can pour it out.  You shall have tea with me, if you wish it, darling.”

Iris gave a sigh of rapture; she was too happy almost for words.  This was almost invariably the case when she found herself in her mother’s presence.  When with her mother she was quiet and seldom spoke a great deal.  In the garden with the other children Iris was the one who chattered most, but with her mother her words were always few.  She felt herself then to be more or less in a listening attitude.  She listened for the words which dropped from those gentle lips; she was always on the lookout for the love-light which filled the soft brown eyes.

At that moment the old servant, Fortune, brought in the tea on a pretty tray and laid it on a small table near Mrs. Delaney.  Then Iris got up, and with an important air poured it out and brought a cup, nicely prepared, to her mother.

Mrs. Delaney sipped her tea and looked from time to time at her little daughter.  When she did so, Iris devoured her with her anxious eyes.

“No,” she said to herself, “mother does not look ill—­not even very tired.  She is not like anybody else, and that is why—­why she wears that wonderful, almost holy expression.  Sometimes I wish she did not, but I would not change her, not for all the world.”

Iris’ heart grew quiet.  Her cup of bliss was quite full.  She scarcely touched her tea; she was too happy even to eat.

“Have you had enough tea, mother?” she asked presently.

“Yes, darling.  Please push the tea-table a little aside, and then come up very near to me.  I want to hold your dear little hand in mine; I can’t talk much.”

“But you are better—­you are surely better, mother?”

“In one sense, yes, Iris.”

Iris moved the tea-table very deftly aside, and then, drawing up her small chair, slipped her hand inside her mother’s.

“I have made up my mind to tell you, Iris,” said the mother.  She looked at the little girl for a full minute, and then began to talk in a low, clear voice.  “I am the mother of four children.  I don’t think there are any other children like you four in the wide world.  I have thought a great deal about you, and while I have been ill have prayed to God to keep you and to help me, and now, Iris, now that I have got to go away—­”

“To go away, mother?” interrupted Iris, turning very pale.

“Yes, dearest.  Don’t be troubled, darling; I can make it all seem quite happy to you.  But now, when I see it must be done, that I must undertake this very long journey, I want to put things perfectly straight between you and me, my little daughter.”

“Things have been always straight between us, mother,” said Iris.  “I don’t quite understand.”