Isabella! You would see that what I say is true. He is so happy, so
light-hearted. I think he must be just what he used to be when he was
a boy.

"I had a long talk with poor old Goodie last night. She is in the
seventh heaven of delight because the nurse is leaving. She has been
so jealous of her, poor old soul. You can hardly wonder at it, can
you? She told me exactly what she and Keen had arranged. He is going
to sleep in the next room because, as she said, much as she would like
to be next to Francis, she did not wake as easily as she used to, and
she might not hear him if he called; but she is to take in his early
cup of tea so as to have a look at him before any one else. 'I know
just how he likes it,' she assured me. 'Two lumps of sugar and a dash
of cream.' Her devotion is quite pathetic, and she nearly made me cry
last night when she invited me into her room and showed me all her most
precious possessions. They had all to do with Francis. His first pair
of gloves, such tiny things with fingers about an inch long, his baby
shoes, his favourite playthings, beginning with a worsted rabbit and
ending with his last tennis racquet. She had a cupboard full of them.
And she was so proud of all his presents to her, particularly of a blue
china mug which she told me he had bought for her with his own money
when he was seven years old. The dear old woman couldn't stop talking
of him, and I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. She showed me
letters she had from him when he first went to school. The first one
he wrote began 'Darling Goodie,' and ended up 'Your loving little Boy.'
Well, it appears that she did not think this was a suitable way for him
to address her, so she wrote and told him that he was not to write like
that again, but to remember his position, and that God had made him her
superior. He wrote back 'Darling Goodie,' and ended up 'Your loving
little superior Boy.' I saw the letter written in a sprawling childish
hand with a line of crosses for kisses at the bottom of the page. It
was rather sweet, wasn't it?

"You never heard such stories as she told me. How he once dressed up
in the coachman's livery and took the brougham to fetch his mother from
Renwick. It was quite dark, and she got into the carriage without
noticing anything. He drove home at a fearful pace, and galloped the
horses right up the drive, and pulled up at the hall door with a
tremendous jerk. His mother quite th