reast, and his
little crimson silk legs depending from her lap, I did not think he
looked well. He made no attempt to walk about; he was content to swing
his legs softly and strike one as languid and angelic.

Mark came back to us with his sister; and Miss Ambient, making some
remark about having to attend to her correspondence, passed into the
house. Mark came and stood in front of his wife, looking down at the
child, who immediately took hold of his hand, keeping it while he
remained. "I think Ailingham ought to see him," Ambient said; "I think
I will walk over and fetch him."

"That 's Gwendolen's idea, I suppose," Mrs. Ambient replied, very
sweetly.

"It's not such an out-of-the-way idea, when one's child is ill."

"I 'm not ill, papa; I 'm much better now," Dolcino remarked.

"Is that the truth, or are you only saying it to be agreeable? You have
a great idea of being agreeable, you know."

The boy seemed to meditate on this distinction this imputation, for a
moment; then his exaggerated eyes, which had wandered, caught my own
as I watched him. "Do _you_ think me agreeable?" he inquired, with the
candor of his age, and with a smile that made his father turn round to
me, laughing, and ask, mutely, with a glance, "Is n't he adorable?"

"Then why don't you hop about, if you feel so lusty?" Ambient went on,
while the boy swung his hand.

"Because mamma is holding me close!"

"Oh, yes; I know how mamma holds you when I come near!" Ambient
exclaimed, looking at his wife.

She turned her charming eyes up to him, without deprecation or
concession, and after a moment she said, "You can go for Allingham if
you like, I think myself it would be better. You ought to drive."

"She says that to get me away," Ambient remarked to me, laughing; after
which he started for the doctor's.

I remained there with Mrs. Ambient, though our conversation had more
pauses than speeches. The boy's little fixed white face seemed, as
before, to plead with me to stay, and after a while it produced still
another effect, a very curious one, which I shall find it difficult to
express. Of course I expose myself to the charge of attempting to give
fantastic reasons for an act which may have been simply the fruit of a
native want of discretion; and indeed the traceable consequences of that
perversity were too lamentable to leave me any desire to trifle with the
question. All I can say is that I acted in perfect good faith, and
that Dolcino