Trenchard was a sad woman.
"We've had one trial, under God's grace," said Mr. Trenchard. "There
was a boy and a girl--Francis and Jessamy. They died, both, in a bad
epidemic of typhoid here, five years ago. Francis was five, Jessamy
four. 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.' It was hard losing
both of them. They got ill together and died on the same day."
He puffed furiously at his pipe. "Mrs. Trenchard keeps the nursery just
the same as it used to be. She'll show it to you, I daresay."
Later, when Mrs. Trenchard took him over the house, his sight of the
nursery was more moving to him than any of his old memories. She
unlocked the door with a sharp turn of the wrist and showed him the wide
sun-lit room, still with fresh curtains, with a wall-paper of robins and
cherries, with the toys--dolls, soldiers, a big dolls'-house, a
rocking-horse, boxes of bricks.
"Our two children, who died five years ago," she said in her quiet, calm
voice, "this was their room. These were their things. I haven't been
able to change it as yet. Mr. Lasher," she said, smiling up at him, "had
no children, and you were too old for a nursery, I suppose.
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