s my last letters did not get posted, or something. Well, yes;
I got a pretty good scholarship, enough to pay my expenses both ways,
and leave me a hundred dollars besides."

"Oh, Jack! how splendid!" cried Hildegarde, in delight. "That is pretty
glorious, I do think. Wasn't Colonel Ferrers enchanted? Oh! and when can
you see your father? Is he still in Virginia? Of course you want to fly
to him."

"Not in the least!" replied Jack. "I am coming to that presently. I
think that hundred dollars rather went to my head. The first thing I did
when I got it was to cable to my father that I was coming on the
_Urania_. Then I shut myself up in my room and played a bit, and then I
turned somersaults till my head was like--like an apple dumpling; and
then I went shopping."

"Shopping, Jack? I can hardly fancy you shopping."

"Well, I did! I got a pipe for my father,--oh, a beauty!--meerschaum, of
course, carved with a head of Schumann, the most perfect likeness!
Hilda, when the smoke comes out of it, you expect to hear it sing the
'Davidsbuendler,' one after another. Of course anybody except Schumann
would have been ridiculous, but it seems to suit him. Then for Uncle
Tom--a pipe is horror to him, of course--I got a walking-stick, ebony,
with no end of a Turk's head on it. He hates the Turks so, you know. I
knew he would enjoy squeezing it, and rapping it up against things, and
he does like it, I think. And then--" the boy began to fumble in his
pockets, blushing with eagerness--"Mrs. Grahame, I--I saw this in a
shop, and--it made me think of you. Will you put it somewhere, please,
where you will see it now and then, and--and think of me?"

The tiny parcel he held out was wrapped in folds of soft,
foreign-looking paper. Mrs. Grahame, opening it, found an exquisite
little copy of the Nuremburg Madonna, the sweetest and tenderest figure
of motherhood and gracious womanliness.

"My dear boy!" she said, much moved. "What a beautiful, beautiful thing!
Is it really mine? How can I thank you enough?"

"So glad you like it! Is it right, Hilda?"

"Quite right," said Hilda; and they nodded and smiled at each other,
while the mother bent over her treasure, absorbed in its beauty.

"And you, Hilda!" said Jack, searching his pockets again. "Do you
suppose I have anything for you? Do you really suppose I had time to
stop and think about you?"

The boy was in such a glow of happiness, the joy so rippled and shone
from him, that Hilde