sleep well?" he asked, "better than in the field?"

I told him that I had, after I had politely spoken to Mrs. Milligan.

"And the dogs?" asked Arthur.

I called to them; they came running up with Pretty-Heart; the latter
making grimaces as he usually did when he thought that we were going to
give a performance.

Mrs. Milligan had placed her son in the shade and had taken a seat
beside him.

"Now," she said to me, "you must take the dogs and the monkey away; we
are going to work."

I went with the animals to the front of the boat.

What work could that poor little boy do?

I looked round and saw that his mother was making him repeat a lesson
from a book she held in her hand. He seemed to be having great
difficulty in mastering it, but his mother was very patient.

"No," she said at last, "Arthur, you don't know it, at all."

"I can't, Mamma, I just can't," he said, plaintively. "I'm sick."

"Your head is not sick. I can't allow you to grow up in utter ignorance
because you're an invalid, Arthur."

That seemed very severe to me, yet she spoke in a sweet, kind way.

"Why do you make me so unhappy? You know how I feel when you won't
learn."

"I cannot, Mamma; I cannot." And he began to cry.

But Mrs. Milligan did not let herself be won over by his tears, although
she appeared touched and even more unhappy.

"I would have liked to have let you play this morning with Remi and the
dogs," she said, "but you cannot play until you know your lessons
perfectly." With that she gave the book to Arthur and walked away,
leaving him alone.

From where I stood I could hear him crying. How could his mother, who
appeared to love him so much, be so severe with the poor little fellow.
A moment later she returned.

"Shall we try again?" she asked gently.

She sat down beside him and, taking the book, she began to read the
fable called "The Wolf and the Sheep." She read it through three times,
then gave the book back to Arthur and told him to learn it alone. She
went inside the boat.

I could see Arthur's lips moving. He certainly was trying very hard.
But soon he took his eyes off the book; his lips stopped moving. His
look wandered everywhere, but not back to his book. Suddenly he caught
my eye; I made a sign to him to go on with his lesson. He smiled, as
though to thank me for reminding him, and again fixed his eyes on his
book. But as before, he could not concentrate his thoughts; his eyes
began to rove from firs