m his view. In
the summer, when the windows were open, he could hear the hoot of the
motors as they tore along it. But he could see for miles beyond this
road. There was a stretch of green fields, two farms, and a range of
distant hills, behind which the sun always set. And when he got tired
of looking at all this, there was the sky; and the sky to him was a
never-ending joy. The clouds chasing each other across its infinite
blue, presented the most entrancing pictures to him. Monsters pursuing
their prey, ogres changing their shape as they flew, castles dissolving
into ocean waves, mermaids, angels, hunters, wolves, chariots and
horses. These, and hosts besides, all passed before him.

When it was dark in winter-time he would clamber down from his
window-seat and content himself with his toys. The nursery was very
plainly furnished. It had a square table in the middle of the room;
there was one cupboard for Bobby's toys, another for the nursery
crockery; a wooden rocking-chair, a low oak bench, and two rush chairs.
The floor was covered with red cocoanut matting. The fire was guarded
by a high wire screen, and above the mantelpiece hung a coloured
illustration of the battle of Waterloo. Bobby knew every man and horse
in it by name. He had his own stories for every one of them, and was
found more than once dissolved in tears after looking at it.

'That captain under his horse is so dreadfully hurt, his bones is
broken, and he was going home to his little boy!' he would say
pitifully, when Nurse would enquire the cause of his grief.

Nurse was a tall thin woman with a severe voice and a soft heart. But
though she adored her little charge she never let him know it, and the
only time she kissed him was when she tucked him up in his small bed at
night. Bobby was quite aware that the grown-up people in the house did
not care for him. This did not trouble him; he took it for granted
that all grown-up people were the same. With one exception, however.
In the depths of his heart he felt that his unknown father loved him.
One night after saying his prayers, and repeating the Lord's Prayer
sentence by sentence after his nurse, he said:

'Who's "Our Father?" Is it mine own, who's far away?'

'Dear, no!' said the nurse, in a shocked tone. ''Tis God Almighty, up
in heaven.'

'Then I shan't call him "Father," 'cause He isn't.'

'For shame, you wicked boy! God is everybody's Father, He loves you,
and gives y