s saying to Vic that I'd like a glass of claret, and that
I don't see why I shouldn't have it, either. Other fellows would help
themselves to it. I often think I'm a great donkey for my pains."

Elsa looked at him with a strange mixture of sadness and contempt.

"What will he be saying next, I wonder?" her glance seemed to say.

But the words were not expressed.

"Come upstairs," she said. "Vicky has told you, I know, that you must be
_particularly_ careful not to tease mamma to-night."

Geoff returned her look with an almost fierce expression in the eyes
that could be so soft and gentle.

"I wish you'd mind your own business, and leave mother and me to
ourselves. It's your meddling puts everything wrong," he muttered.

But he followed his elder sister upstairs quietly enough. Down in the
bottom of his heart was hidden great faith in Elsa. He would, had
occasion demanded it, have given his life, fearlessly, cheerfully, for
her or his mother, or the others. But the smaller sacrifices, of his
likes and dislikes, of his silly boyish temper and humours--of "self,"
in short, he could not or would not make. Still, something in Elsa's
words and manner this evening impressed him in spite of himself. He
followed her into the drawing-room, fully _meaning_ to be good and
considerate.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II.

"MAYN'T I SPEAK TO YOU, MAMMA?"

That was the worst of it--the most puzzling part of it, rather, perhaps
we should say--with Geoffrey. He _meant_ to be good. He would not for
worlds have done anything that he distinctly saw to be wrong. He worked
well at his lessons, though to an accompaniment of constant grumbling--at
home, that is to say; grumbling at school is not encouraged. He was
rather a favourite with his companions, for he was a manly and "plucky"
boy, entering heartily into the spirit of all their games and amusements,
and he was thought well of by the masters for his steadiness and
perseverance, though not by any means of naturally studious tastes. The
wrong side of him was all reserved for home, and for his own family.

Yet, only son and fatherless though he was, he had not been "spoilt" in
the ordinary sense of the word. Mrs. Tudor, though gentle, and in some
ways timid, was not a weak or silly woman. She had brought up her
children on certain broad rules of "must," as to which she was as firm
as a rock, and these had succeeded so well with the girls that it was a
compl