Here he began to cough and could talk no more for the present.

A great silent change had been passing in the major, for the child’s and the soldier’s souls had gotten nearer to each other than until that time any two other souls in the house had been able to. Mark was not only an altogether new influence on him, but he had helped to stir up and bring alive in him a thousand influences besides. Those were not merely of things hitherto dormant in him, but memories of unconscious memories—words of his mother, a certain Sunday evening with her, her last blessing on his careless head, the verse of a well-known hymn she repeated as she was dying, old scraps of things she had taught him. Dying little Mark gave life to these and many other things. The major had never properly been a child but now lived his childhood over again with Mark in a better fashion.

“I have had such a curious, such a beautiful dream, majie,” he said, waking up in the middle of one night. The major was sitting up with him—he was never left alone now.

“What was it, Markie?” asked the major.

“I should like Corney to hear it,” returned Mark.

“I will call him and you can tell us both together.”

“Oh, I don’t think we should wake Corney up. He would not like that! He must hear it sometime—but it must be at the right time, otherwise he would laugh at it and I could not bear that. You know Corney always laughs without thinking first whether the thing was made for laughing at.”

By this time Corney had been to see Mark often. He always spoke kindly to him now, but always as a little goose. And Mark, the least assuming of mortals, always being in earnest, did not want his dream made light of. Hence he was not often ready to speak freely to Corney.

“But I’ll tell you what, majie,” he went on “—I’ll tell you the dream, and then, if I should go away without having told him, you must tell it to Corney. He won’t laugh then—at least I don’t think he will. Do you promise to tell him, majie?”

“I will,” answered the major, drawing himself up with a mental military salute, ready to obey to the letter whatever Mark would require of him.

Without another word the child began.

“I was somewhere,” he said. “—I don’t know where. Jesus was there too. ‘Ah, little one,’ he said when he saw me, ‘I have been getting your eyes open as fast as I could all the time! We’re in our father’s house together now! But, Markie, where’s your brother Corney?’ And I answered and said, ‘Jesus, I’m very sorry, but I don’t know. I know very well that I’m my brother’s keeper, but I can’t tell where he is.’ Then Jesus smiled again and said, ‘Never mind, then. I didn’t ask you because I didn’t know myself. But we must have Corney here—only we can’t get him until he sets himself to be good! You must tell Corney, only not just yet, that I want him. Tell him that he and I have got one father, and I couldn’t bear to have him out in the cold, with all the horrid creatures that won’t be good! Tell him I love him so that I will be very sharp with him if he doesn’t hurry and come home. Our father is so good, and it is dreadful to me that Corney won’t mind him! He is so patient with him, Markie!’ ‘I know that, Jesus,’ I said. And I don’t know what came next.—Now, what am I to do, majie? You see why I couldn’t bear to have that dream laughed at. Yet I must tell it to Corney because there is a message in it for him!”