was to ask mamma for a new one, they'd
all be down on me again, you'd see."

"But you haven't had it long, Geoff," said Vic.

"I've had it nearly a year. You're getting as bad as the rest, Vicky,"
he said querulously.

He had forgotten that he was not alone in the room with his little
sister, and had raised his tone, as he was too much in the habit of
doing.

"Hoot-toot, hoot-toot!" said a now well-known voice from the other side
of the room; "what's all that about over there? You and Victoria can't
be quarrelling, surely?"

Mrs. Tudor looked up anxiously.

"Oh no," said Vicky, eagerly; "we were only talking."

"And about what, pray?" persisted Mr. Byrne.

Vicky hesitated. She did not want to vex Geoff, but she was unused to
any but straightforward replies.

"About Geoff's umbrella," she said, growing very red.

"About Geoff's umbrella?" repeated the old gentleman. "What could there
be so interesting and exciting to say about Geoff's umbrella?"

"Only that I haven't got one--at least, mine's in rags; and if I say I
need a new one, they'll all be down upon me for extravagance," said
Geoff, as sulkily as he dared.

"My dear boy, don't talk in that dreadfully aggrieved tone," said his
mother, trying to speak lightly. "You know I have never refused you
anything you really require."

Geoffrey did not reply, at least not audibly. But Elsa's quick ears and
some other ears besides hers--for it is a curious fact that old people,
when they are not deaf, are often peculiarly the reverse--caught his
muttered whisper.

"Of course. Always the way if _I_ want anything."

Mr. Byrne did not stay late. He saw that Mrs. Tudor looked tired and
depressed, and he did not wish to be alone with her to talk about Geoff,
as she probably would have done, for he could not have spoken of the boy
as she would have wished to hear.

A few days passed. Great-Uncle Hoot-Toot spent a part of each with the
Tudor family, quietly making his observations. Geoff certainly did not
show to advantage; and though his mother wore herself out with talking to
him and trying to bring him to a more reasonable frame of mind, it was
of no use. So at last she took Elsa's advice and left the discontented,
tiresome boy to himself, for perhaps the first time in his life.

And every evening, when alone with Victoria, the selfish boy entertained
his poor little sister with his projects of running away from a home
where he was so little appreciated.

B