a ring that she had dropped from
her finger, and which had to be followed over the carpet. It made her
red and flushed when she half raised her head to say, "Yes, Pippo--you
know--I have always told you----"

Philip did not remark that what his mother said was nothing after all.
He got up to help her to look for her ring, and put his arm round her
waist as she knelt on the floor.

"Yes, mamma," he said, tenderly, protectingly, "I do know: but
something's changed; either it's in me that makes you feel you can't
trust me--or else it is in you. And I don't know which would be worst."

"There is no change," she said, after a moment, for she could not help
the ring being found, and immediately when his quick, young eyes came
to the search: but she did not look him in the face. "There is no
change, dear. There is only some worrying business which involves a
great many troubles of my old life before you were born. You shall
hear--everything--in a little while: but I cannot enter into it all at
this moment. It is full of complications and--secrets that belong to
other people. Pippo, you must promise me to wait patiently, and to
believe--to believe--always the best you can--of your mother."

The boy laughed as he raised her up, still holding her with his arm.
"Believe the best I can! Well, I don't think that will be a great
effort, mother. Only to think that you can't trust me as you always have
done makes me wretched. We've been such friends, haven't we, mamma?
I've always told you everything, or at least everything except just the
nonsense at school: and you've told me everything. And if we are going
to be different now----"

"You've told me everything!" the boy was as sure of it as that he was
born. She had to hold by him to support herself, and it cost her a
strong effort to restrain the shiver that ran through her. "We are not
going to be different," she said, "as soon as we leave London--or
before--you shall know everything about this business of mine, Pippo.
Will that satisfy you? In the meantime it is not pleasant business,
dear; and you must bear with me if I am abstracted sometimes, and
occupied, and cross."

"But, mother," said Philip, bending over her with that young celestial
foolish look of gravity and good advice with which a neophyte will
sometimes address the much-experienced and heavily-laden pilgrim, "don't
you think it would be easier if it was all open between us, and I took
my share? If it is other