the brows and let the little
sufferer sleep.

The vicar did not return home until some time after the doctor had left
the house and Jupp gone back to his duties at the railway-station; but
although all traces of the explosion had been removed from the lawn and
the grass smoothed over by Joe the gardener, he knew before being told
that something had happened from the unusual stillness around, both
without and within doors, the little girls being as quiet as mice, and
Teddy, the general purveyor of news and noise, being not to the fore as
usual.

It was not long before he found out all about the accident; when there
was a grand to-do, as may be expected, Mr Vernon expressing himself
very strongly anent the fact of Jupp putting such a dangerous thing as
gunpowder within reach of the young scapegrace, and scolding Mary for
not looking after her charge better.

Jupp, too, got another "blowing up" from the station-master for being
behind time. So, what with the general upset, and the dilapidated
appearance of Master Teddy, with his face like a boiled vegetable
marrow, when the bandages had been removed from his head and he was
allowed to get up and walk about again, the celebration of the Queen's
Birthday was a black day for weeks afterwards in the chronicles of the
vicar's household!

During the rest of the year, however, and indeed up to his eighth year,
the course of Teddy's life was uneventful as far as any leading incident
was concerned.

Of course, he got into various little scrapes, especially on those
occasions when his grandmother paid her periodic visits to the vicarage,
for the old lady spoiled him dreadfully, undoing in a fortnight all that
Mary had effected by months of careful teaching and training in the way
of obedience and manners; but, beyond these incidental episodes, he did
not distinguish himself by doing anything out of the common.

Teddy leisurely pursued that uneven tenor of way customary to boys of
his age, exhibiting a marked preference for play over lessons, and
becoming a great adept at field sports through Jupp's kindly tuition,
albeit poor Puck was no longer able to assist him in hunting rabbits,
the little dog having become afflicted with chronic asthma ever since
his immersion in the river when he himself had so narrowly escaped from
drowning.

If water, though, had worked such ill to Puck, the example did not
impress itself much on Teddy; for, despite his own previous peril, he
was