the time his eyes were roaming round the
room taking everything in with admiration and delight. There was a
canary in a cage, a globe of goldfish, bowls of pink and white roses,
pictures and books, comfortable easy-chairs, and in the corner a
delicious-looking table, spread with a white cloth and shining silver,
with a large dish of strawberries in the centre, a junket, and a
rich-looking plum-cake. Then his eyes came back to his stepmother.
She was clad in a white gown, but a crimson wrapper round her seemed to
match in colour the roses pinned to her breast, and her cheeks vied
with them in hue.

'And so you have kidnapped your own little son! And he himself helped
you to do it! How can you leave your dear old granny, my boy? She has
loved you and cared for you all these years. Is it kind to run away
from her?'

Bobby looked up wonderingly.

'I couldn't never be kind to grandmother,' he said; 'she wouldn't like
it. And it's only fathers who love anybodies; Nurse told me they
always did.'

'And not mothers? Ah! you poor little atom, I forgot that you have not
known your mother.'

'How's the back?' asked Mr. Allonby, looking at his wife with a smile.

'Oh! very good to-day; I've been following you in thought all the time.
You see, Bobby, I have to lie here on my back, and my truant and
wanderer go out to seek adventures, and come back and amuse me by
telling me all they have seen and heard. Then I mend them up, and send
them out again, and that's how we spend our life.'

'Motherums hasn't always lived on her back,' put in True eagerly. 'She
used to gallop everywhere on a lov-elly black horse till she got her
fall. That was a dre'fful day!'

'So "dre'fful" that we will never talk of it,' said Mrs. Allonby
quickly. 'Now, True, darling, take Bobby to Margot, and she will get a
comfy bed for him in dad's dressing-room. And when he is quite tucked
up in it he shall have a basin of bread and milk and go fast asleep
till to-morrow morning, for I'm sure it is long past his proper
bedtime.'

Bobby looked longingly towards the table, and Mrs. Allonby noted it.

'That is for father only; he is going to have some hot meat directly;
but I think he can spare you six strawberries. True, you can have six
too. Bring a plate over here and eat them together.'

So the two children sat down on the rug together, and Bobby felt he
would like to stay there all night. But a little later, when he was
going upstairs