dge. I always put plenty of sugar in it for you, and that showed."

"The camomile-tea!" thought Dexter, a dose of which the old lady
expected him to take about once a week, and which never did him any
harm, if it never did him any good.

"And you'll take it to-night, sir, like a good boy!"

"Yes, yes, I will indeed," said Dexter, with the full intention of
keeping his word out of gratitude for his escape.

"Now, that's like being a good boy," said the old lady, smiling, and
extricating her fingers from his button-hole, so as to stroke his hair.
"It will do you no end of good; and how you have improved since you have
been here, my dear, your hair's grown so nicely, and you've got such a
good pink colour in your cheeks. It's the camomile-tea done that."

Mrs Millett leaned forward with her hands on the boy's shoulder, and
kissed him in so motherly a way that Dexter felt a catching of the
breath, and kissed her again.

"That's right," said the old lady. "You ain't half so bad as Maria
pretends you are. `It's only a bit of mischief now and then,' I says to
her, `and he's only a boy,' and that's what you are, ain't it, my dear?"

Dexter did not answer.

"I shall put your dose on your washstand, and you mind and take it the
moment you get out of bed to-morrow morning."

"Yes," said Dexter dismally.

"No! you'll forget it. You've got to take that camomile-tea to-night,
and if you don't promise me you will, I shall come and see you take it."

"I promise you," said Dexter, and the old lady nodded and went upstairs,
while the boy hung about in the hall.

How was it that just now, when he was going away, people were beginning
to seem more kind to him, and something began to drag at his heart to
keep him from going?

He could not tell. An hour before he had felt a wild kind of elation.
He was going to be free from lessons, the doctor's admonitions, and the
tame regular life at the house, to be off in search of adventure, and
with Bob for his companion, going all over the world in that boat, while
now, in spite of all he could do, he did not feel so satisfied and sure.

There was something else he knew that he ought to do. He could not bid
Helen good-bye with his lips, but he felt that he must bid her farewell
another way, for she had always been kind to him from the day he came.

He crept into the study again, this time without being seen.

There was a faint light in the pleasant room, for the doctor's lamp