"Sing me the songs that to me were so deah
Long, long ago, long ago.
Tell me the tales I delighted to heah
Long, long ago, long ago."

The sweet little voice sang it to the end without missing a word. It was
the lullaby her mother oftenest sang to her.

The Colonel, who had sat down on the steps to listen, wiped his eyes.

"My 'long ago' is all that I have left to me," he thought, bitterly,
"for to-morrow this little one, who brings back my past with every word
and gesture, will leave me, too. Why can't that Jack Sherman die while
he's about it, and let me have my own back again?"

That question recurred to him many times during the week after Lloyd's
departure. He missed her happy voice at every turn. He missed her bright
face at the table. The house seemed so big and desolate without her. He
ordered all the covers put back on the drawing-room furniture, and
the door locked as before.

It was a happy moment for the Little Colonel when she was lifted down
from Maggie Boy at the cottage gate.

She went dancing into the house, so glad to find herself in her mother's
arms that she forgot all about the new cloak and muff that had made her
so proud and happy.

She found her father propped up among the pillows, his fever all gone,
and the old mischievous twinkle in his eyes.