n she knew him
first."

The boy's face flashed back her smile, as the sea does the sunlight.

"Oh! I say, but that's good news," he said. He lay quite still on his
back for a little while, thinking about it.

"That seems to give one a shove, you know," he remarked presently. Then
he fell to playing with her bracelets again. "After all, I've got a
good many shoves to-day, mother. Dr. Knott's a regular champion shover.
He told me about a number of people he'd known who had got smashed up
somehow, or who'd always had something wrong, you know--and how they'd
put a good face on it and hadn't let it interfere, but had done things
just the same. And he told me I'd just got to be plucky--he knew I
could if I tried--and not let it interfere either. He told me I mustn't
be soft, or lazy, because doing things is more difficult for me than
for other people. But that I'd just got to put my back into it, and go
in and win. And I told him I would--and you'll help me, mummy, won't
you?"

"Yes, darling, yes," Lady Calmady said.

"I want to begin at once," he went on hurriedly, looking hard at the
bracelets. "I shouldn't like to be unkind to her, mother, but do you
think Clara would give me up? I don't need a nurse now. It's rather
silly. May one of the men-servants valet me? I should like Winter best,
because he's been here always, and I shouldn't feel shy with him. Would
it bore you awfully to speak about that now, so that he might begin
to-night?"

Lady Calmady's brave smile grew a trifle sad. The boy was less
completely given back to her than she had fondly supposed. This day was
after all to introduce a new order. And the woman always pays. She was
to pay for that advance, so was the devoted handmaiden, Clara. Still
the boy must have his way--were it even towards a merely imagined good.

"Very well, dearest, I will settle it," she answered.

"You won't mind, though, mother?"

Katherine stroked the short curly hair back from his forehead.

"I don't mind anything that promises to make you happier, Dickie," she
said. "What else did you and Dr. Knott settle--anything else?"

Richard waited, then he turned on his elbow and looked full and very
earnestly at her.

"Yes, mother, we did settle something more. And something that I'm
afraid you won't like. But it would make me happier than anything
else--it would make all the difference that--that can be made, you
know."

He paused, his expression very firm though his lips qu