beauty, softening--or seeming to soften--the hardness of her
eyes. Always she was very sweet to my mother, who by contrast beside her
appeared witless and ungracious; and to me, whatever her motive, she was
kindness itself; hardly ever arriving without some trifling gift or plan
for affording me some childish treat. By instinct she understood exactly
what I desired and liked, the books that would appeal to me as those my
mother gave me never did, the pleasures that did please me as opposed to
the pleasures that should have pleased me. Often my mother, talking
to me, would chill me with the vista of the life that lay before me:
a narrow, viewless way between twin endless walls of "Must" and "Must
not." This soft-voiced lady set me dreaming of life as of sunny fields
through which one wandered laughing, along the winding path of Will; so
that, although as I have said, there lurked at the bottom of my thoughts
a fear of her; yet something within me I seemed unable to control went
out to her, drawn by her subtle sympathy and understanding of it.

"Has he ever seen a pantomime?" she asked of my father one morning,
looking at me the while with a whimsical screwing of her mouth.

My heart leaped within me. My father raised his eyebrows: "What would
your mother say, do you think?" he asked. My heart sank.

"She thinks," I replied, "that theatres are very wicked places." It
was the first time that any doubt as to the correctness of my mother's
judgments had ever crossed my mind.

Mrs. Teidelmann's smile strengthened my doubt. "Dear me," she said, "I
am afraid I must be very wicked. I have always regarded a pantomime as
quite a moral entertainment. All the bad people go down so very straight
to--well, to the fit and proper place for them. And we could promise to
leave before the Clown stole the sausages, couldn't we, Paul?"

My mother was called and came; and I could not help thinking how
insignificant she looked with her pale face and plain dark frock,
standing stiffly beside this shining lady in her rustling clothes.

"You will let him come, Mrs. Kelver," she pleaded in her soft caressing
tones; "it's Dick Whittington, you know--such an excellent moral."

My mother had stood silent, clasping and unclasping her hands, a
childish trick she had when troubled; and her lips were trembling.
Important as the matter loomed before my own eyes, I wondered at her
agitation.

"I am very sorry," said my mother, "it is very kind of yo