way
with her handkerchief, but if she held her handkerchief to her
eyes perhaps they would not be able to come out at all. It
occurred to him that possibly she was sorry she had said, wicked
things about father, and to comfort her, for it made him feel
fidgety to see her cry, he whispered to her that he would not
tell. But she stared at him hopelessly through her red eyelids,
and he felt that he had not said the right thing. She called him
her poor boy, and yet it appeared that he was not ill. It was
all very mysterious and uncomfortable, and it would be a good
thing when father came back and everything went on as before,
even though he had to go back to school.

Later on the woman from the mill came in to sit with mother. She
brought Jack some sweets, but instead of playing with him she burst
into tears. She made more noise when she cried than mother; in fact
he was afraid that in a minute he would have to laugh at her
snortings, so he went into the parlour and sat there in the dark,
eating his sweets, and knitting his brow over the complexities of
life. He could see five stars, and there was a light behind the red
curtain of the front bedroom at Arber's farm. It was about twelve
times as large as a star, and a much prettier colour. By nearly
closing his eyes he could see everything double, so that there were
ten stars and two red lights; he was trying to make everything come
treble when the gate clicked and he saw his father's shadow. He was
delighted with this happy end to a tiresome day, and as he ran
through the passage he called out to mother to say that father was
back. Mother did not answer, but he heard a bit of noise in the
kitchen as he opened the front door.

He said "Good evening" in the grown-up voice that father encouraged,
but father slipped in and shut the door without saying a word. Every
night when he came back from the post-office he brought Jack the
gummed edgings off the sheets of stamps, and Jack held out his hand
for them as a matter of course. Automatically father felt in his
overcoat pocket and pulled out a great handful. "Take care of them,
they're the last you'll get," he said; but when Jack asked why, his
father looked at him with the same hopeless expression that he had
found in his mother's eyes a short while before. Jack felt a little
cross that every one should be so stupid.

When they went into the kitchen everybody looked very strange, and
Jack sat down in the corner and listened