I am not sleeping very well, and as I lie awake at night I think sometimes of all the others who are grieving, too, and because I share the same sorrowful ’experience’—because there is inscribed upon my heart, as upon theirs, a list of names: I find myself ’linked up’ again—bound indissolubly to each of them by a great sorrow, common to us all.
We have been in Devonshire a month now, and still we do not talk of going back to Surrey. It is lovely to be staying with Aunt Constance, and I am trying to be brave and cheerful, and to go out in the village as I used to do. The Gidger loves the dear old cottage folk, and they love her, and it is perfect having father.
The Hickley Woods are just as beautiful, only my heart breaks when I walk about in them.
It has turned hot, even I am warm enough and don’t need fires at night. This evening there was a most gorgeous sunset, the sky was all ablaze with emerald and blue and gold. The distant hills had a bloom on them such as there is sometimes on bunches of purple grapes.
I saw father alone in the garden after dinner, and I felt I wanted to tell him what I hoped about the little son, so I went and stood beside him, and slipped my arm through his, and we wandered out into the woods as we have done many times before.
After I had told him, father said, with a very tender look upon his face,—
’And so The Shepherd Beautiful is giving you another of His lambs to mind.’
I thought it was such a perfect name for Him, it appealed to me more at that moment than any of the other lovely ones that daddy calls Him by. After a little while father said,—
’Shall I tell you something, darling, that I have never told any one before?’
’It was many years ago, quite soon after I was married. Your mother and I were walking over the downs. They were all "trimmed" with sheep. She was so amused at the lambs, because she thought they were dreadfully impertinent to their mothers sometimes, and then she said with a sweet look in her eyes,—
’"Anthony, The Shepherd Beautiful is going to give us one of His lambs to mind."
’Instead of being pleased I got in a sudden panic about it, as husbands do sometimes, and your mother laughed at me and shook my arm, and looked round at all the sunny grasslands filled with sheep and said,—