LITTLE MILDRED, OR THE GATHERED LAMB.

TOP, Mr. Arthur, if you please. You are not to go upstairs. Mistress left orders for you to stay in the library until she came down.”

So spoke the younger servant at Ashton Grange, as Arthur rushed upstairs three steps at a time.

“Why, what’s the matter? Why shouldn’t I go upstairs? Is anything the matter?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Arthur, whether there is much the matter; but I am afraid Miss Mildred is ill. The doctor is upstairs, and mistress said there is not to be a sound of noise.”

These words quite sobered Arthur, as he turned from the stairs and went into the library. It was a pleasant room at all times, but especially so on a winter’s evening, when the frosty night was shining clear and cold without. A bright fire was blazing, lighting up the crimson carpet and curtains, and sparkling on the snowy table-cover, where preparations for such a tea were made as Arthur was usually at this time prepared to appreciate. But as he sat down on the rug, and, holding his face in his two hands, gazed earnestly into the fire, he was not thinking of his hunger. A very grave expression was on his boyish face. He was thinking of what the housemaid had told him, and wishing very much to know more.

“Why, what can be the matter with baby?” he thought. “She was all right when I went out. She can’t be so very bad, I should think, all in a minute. No; I don’t believe she is. I’m hungry.”

And Arthur started up, and came nearer the table, intending to help himself to something. But then he stopped, and thought again—

“I suppose she is though, or else the doctor wouldn’t be here, and every one wouldn’t have to be so quiet. Oh, dear, I wish mother would come. I wish she would come. I do wish very much she would come.”

Then he thought of creeping quietly upstairs, and listening outside the nursery door; and the temptation to do so was very strong; but he remembered his mother’s injunction, and sat down again on the rug. But it was very hard to wait. It would have been a great deal easier to Arthur to do almost anything else just then. One half hour and then another passed, and no sound came to break the stillness which was in the house, till Arthur’s head dropped on his hand for weariness, and in a few minutes he was fast asleep. How long he remained so he hardly knew; but he did not wake until a gentle step came on the stairs. The door was softly opened, and Arthur’s mother entered the room. She was very pale, and had a sad, sad look on her face, and just sank wearily down in an easy-chair, on the opposite side of the fireplace to her little boy, who was wide awake now.

“Oh, mother, is it true what Anna says about Mildred, that she is so very ill?” asked Arthur breathlessly. He had come nearer to his mother, and, leaning his chin on her knee, he looked eagerly up in her face.

“Yes, Arthur;” and the hand that was pressed on his forehead to stroke back his brown hair was hot and trembling.

“Very ill?” asked Arthur again. “Why, she was a right just after dinner. She will get better, won’t she, mamma?”

“Mildred is very, very ill, dear Arthur,” his mother said gently. “I came to tell you myself, darling, because I knew you would be wanting to know. She has been attacked with croup very violently indeed, and the doctor does not give me any hope that she will live. I cannot stay with you, my darling boy.”

She did not say any more, and before Arthur had scarcely understood what he had heard, his mother was gone. There was only one thought in his mind now. Mildred dying! his darling baby sister, who a little while ago had laughed, and crowed, and kicked her pretty feet as he played with her. How could it all have happened? And how soon a dark cloud had fallen over everything that had seemed so bright! And then a little picture of her fresh baby face came before him, and he could see the little rosy mouth, and bright blue eyes, and the soft cheek that he had so often kissed. Would her sweet face never laugh again? And would he never hear her clear, soft voice calling “Artie, Artie”? Arthur did not know he had loved his baby sister so deeply until now that the dark, sad news had come that perhaps she was going to be taken away from them all for ever. So he sat in the pleasant firelight on the hearth-rug; but there was no brightness on his face now. A very grave cloud had fallen on it, as the words were in his heart that his mother had told him. And then, as he thought about what they really meant, his lip quivered, and the tears fell on the floor, till at length his head bowed down on the armchair where his mother had been sitting, and Arthur sobbed bitterly all alone. It was a very hopeless, heart-sick feeling, as he wept with the vehemence of his strong, loving nature; and he had never felt in this way before; for all his life hitherto he had known what it was to be loved and to love, and had never had cause to mourn over the loss of what his heart had wound itself around.

“I wish some one would come and tell me how Mildred is,” said Arthur presently to himself, after half an hour had passed when he had been crying on the rug. “I wonder is the doctor going to stay there all night?”

Poor little Arthur! it was very hard work waiting there all alone with no one to speak to, not even Hector the house-dog, his friend and confidant; for a servant had gone into the town and taken him with him. Presently the door opened, and he started up eagerly. It was the housemaid, and the candle that she held in her hand showed a grave, tear-stained face.

“Mr. Arthur, will you come upstairs?” she said. “Mistress sent me to tell you. Will you come up to the nursery?”

“Why—what—may I really? What, is she better then?” asked Arthur joyfully, and yet with a certain trembling at his heart, as he saw the expression on Anna’s face.

“Oh, no, Mr. Arthur,” she said, bursting into tears. “Poor, dear little darling, she can’t scarce breathe; its dreadful to hear her, and she such a sweet little pet. Oh, dear, dear, dear, and whatever will mistress do, and master?”

But Arthur was not crying now as he went slowly up the stairs, feeling as if it was all a dream, and not at all as if these were the same stairs that he generally mounted, or that this was the nursery door where he had generally bounded in with a laughing shout to the bright little sister who now lay very near the shore of the other land. She was a very little girl; not two years ago she had first come; and Arthur, who had been half-afraid of the tiny baby that lay in the nurse’s arms so still and quiet, had by degrees learnt to love her with all his heart. He knew just the best ways to please her, and to make her voice ring out the merry crow he so liked to hear; and always, when she saw her brother coming up the avenue that led to the house, she would stretch out her tiny arms, and try to jump from her nurse’s arms to meet him.

It was only a few hours ago that Arthur had waved his hand to her, and made Hector jump and roll along the ground, that she might see him. She had looked so bright and rosy then, and now it was all so different!

The room felt warm as he entered, and there seemed to be a great many people around the little white bed where Mildred lay. Arthur never, never forgot that scene; it lay on his heart like a strange, sad picture all his life. He could not see his little sister’s face, only a stray golden curl was peeping from the white sheet, and lay on the pillow; he could hear her breathing, and it made his heart quiver to listen to the sounds. The nurse was standing a little aside; for there was nothing more for her to do. She had been placing hot flannels, and trying favourite remedies; but these were all of no avail. The doctor was standing at the post of the bed; for he knew that Mildred’s little life was ebbing fast. And then Arthur looked at his father and mother. His mother was sitting by the pillow, and she almost lay upon the bed as she leant over her little dying child. His father was standing close by, and Arthur looked again at the expression that was on his face. He was in general a little afraid of his father; in fact, for the last two or three years he had not seen him at all, and it was only by the kind letters and messages from India, that he had known him of late, and he had thought him rather grave and stern, he was so different from his sweet, gentle mother; and though Arthur loved him at a distance, he had quite different feelings for her.

But now, as he looked again, he saw that a softness was on his father’s face, and that the hand that was laid on his wife’s shoulder was trembling; and the thought that was in Arthur’s mind just then was, “Father really looks as if he was going to cry.”

Presently his mother went a little closer to her baby, and Arthur just heard her whisper, “Let her die in my arms.” His father looked as if he thought it would be better not. But she looked up again: “Give her, I must.” So very gently she took the covering from the child, and drew her to her arms.

Little Mildred did not lie there very long. It was terrible to see her, and Arthur could hardly bear to look; but he did look as the convulsions made her struggle and gasp for breath.

At length he heard his father’s voice in a low whisper say, “She’s gone; thank God.” And then he saw him take a little helpless form from his mother’s arms and lay it back on the white bed, and Arthur saw that his tiny sister was dead. She was lying still, her breath was gone for ever; her eyes were closed, and her curls lay soft and golden on the pillow. She would never open her blue eyes again, and her voice would never more call “Artie, Artie.”

He just saw that his mother sunk down on the floor by the bedside. He could not see her face, but he heard a deep, deep groan, and then she said, “My baby, my darling.” She did not cry, she only knelt there still and silent; and then suddenly a great rush of feeling came over Arthur’s heart as the thought of sweet little Mildred lying dead came over his mind, and he threw himself by his mother’s side, burying his face on her shoulder, and burst into a passion of crying. “Oh, mamma, mamma!” was all he said. “Don’t, Arthur; you had better go down stairs, my boy,” said his father gently. But his mother whispered, “Let him stay;” and she threw her arms round him, and clasped him so tightly that he could hardly breathe.

Perhaps it was good for her to hear her child’s sobs; they seemed to enter into her heart and melt it, for it was icy in its mourning before.

“God has taken our little Mildred,” said Arthur’s father presently, in a very choked, quivering voice. “He has taken her to be very happy with Himself. He will take care of her for ever.”

“I know it,” said Arthur’s mother; “better than we could.”

Presently Arthur got up, and before he went away from the room he threw his arms once more around his little dead sister, and the tears fell over her golden curls and her round fair cheeks, which were still round and red.

He cried himself to sleep that night, and when he awoke in the morning it was with a dreary feeling that a great deal was gone. He was the only child now, and as he stood by the little open grave where Mildred’s tiny coffin had been lowered, and as he felt the soft, tight clasp of his mother’s hand in his, Arthur felt he would be a loving boy to her.