into this wicked world, young man, and a nice use you seem to have
made of your time. You must do nothing whatever. Can you do that?"

"Yes," said Punch in a dazed way. He had known that Mamma was coming.
There was a chance, then, of another beating. Thank Heaven, Papa was
n't coming too. Aunty Rosa had said of late that he ought to be beaten
by a man.

For the next three weeks Black Sheep was strictly allowed to do
nothing. He spent his time in the old nursery looking at the broken
toys, for all of which account must be rendered to Mamma. Aunty Rosa
hit him over the hands if even a wooden boat were broken. But that sin
was of small importance compared to the other revelations, so darkly
hinted at by Aunty Rosa. "When your mother comes, and hears what I
have to tell her, she may appreciate you properly," she said grimly,
and mounted guard over Judy lest that small maiden should attempt to
comfort her brother, to the peril of her own soul.

And Mamma came--in a four-wheeler and a flutter of tender excitement.
Such a Mamma! She was young, frivolously young, and beautiful, with
delicately flushed cheeks, eyes that shone like stars, and a voice
that needed no additional appeal of outstretched arms to draw little
ones to her heart. Judy ran straight to her, but Black Sheep
hesitated. Could this wonder be "showing off"? She would not put out
her arms when she knew of his crimes. Meantime was it possible that by
fondling she wanted to get anything out of Black Sheep? Only all his
love and all his confidence; but that Black Sheep did not know. Aunty
Rosa withdrew and left Mamma, kneeling between her children, half
laughing, half crying, in the very hall where Punch and Judy had wept
five years before.

"Well, chicks, do you remember me?"

"No," said Judy frankly, "but I said 'God bless Papa and Mamma,' ev'vy
night."

"A little," said Black Sheep. "Remember I wrote to you every week,
anyhow. That is n't to show off, but 'cause of what comes afterward."

"What comes after! What should come after, my darling boy?" And she
drew him to her again. He came awkwardly, with many angles. "Not used
to petting," said the quick Mother-soul. "The girl is."

"She's too little to hurt anyone," thought Black Sheep, "and if I said
I'd kill her, she'd be afraid. I wonder what Aunty Rosa will tell."

There was a constrained late dinner, at the end of which Mamma picked
up Judy and put her to bed with endearments manifold. Faithless littl