house yet, and there was no room for a party. It was really MOST his, 'cos he was the oldest: his cake would be six storeys high, and have six lighted candles r

or sheer agitation, rocked himself to and fro. The truth was, in spite of the glorious preparations he felt anything but happy. Guiltily and surreptitiously he had paid at least a dozen visits to the outhouse at the bottom of the yard, to steal a peep inside. First, Mamma had said "soon" for the pony, and then "someday," and then his birthday: so to-morrow was h

Lallie; and Lucie nodded: "M

OW it'll

bwown!" buzzed one

HAVE a pony wit

iraffe belonging to the giant Noah's Ark and broke its neck; flew into a tantrum when rebuked; was obstreperous about being dressed, and snarly to his sisters; till Mary said, if he didn't behave he'd go to bed instead. How he dreaded the display of the presents! Cousin Josey with her sneer

you se

twins more dazzled than would

up of several smaller tables put together, was laden with cakes and creams and jellies; and even the big people found the good things "simply delicious." And though, of course, Mary could not attempt to compete with some of the lavish entertainments here given for children - the Archie Whites had actually had a champagne supper for their five-year-old, the Boppins had hired a CHEF from a caterer's - yet she had spared no pains to make her child

s a-sparkle. At this moment, however, her objective was Cuffy, who, his black eyes not a whit less glittery than her own, his topknot all askew - he was really getting too big for a topknot; but she found it hard to forgo the morning pleasure of winding the silky curl about her finger - Cuffy was utilising the pause to skate up and down the slippe

a good example to your visitors. Listen! I think I heard Papa. Run

ot so easily forgiven. "Shan't! . . . don'

can usually get round him. He really ought to put in an a

"Do you think

of c

lay him down on his sofa. It's time he had a na

e stepbrother in her arms, where he curled up and shut his eyes, one little hand dangli

what I'd do

he surgery door.

nt start at her entrance, exclaiming: "Yes, yes? What is it? - Oh, you, Emmy! Come in, my dear, come in. I think I

eringly. Aloud she said: "May I stay here a

sofa that she might find a place with her

s hardly been afraid of

laying a finger on the child's sweat-damp hair, a

o remind me of your mother, my dear! The first time I ever saw her - she could have bee

ple are always saying that . . . that I'm like her. And sometimes, Uncle, I

fided so heretical a sentiment. B

to a new soul why not a brand-new covering? All the same, child, d

ly me

her in her white, flounced tarlatan, a narrow blue ribbon round her narrow waist, a wreath of forget-me-nots in her ripe-corn hair. Th

nt Mary sent me to tell you . . . I mean she thought, Uncle, y

ost his warmth. "No, no

e here . . . people who'd very much like to s

ife, my dear, I have always been able to count on the fingers of one hand, those people - my patients excepted, of course - who h

o say in response: how to refute ideas which she was sure were not true. Positively sure. For they opened up abysses into which

d startled her with his violence, he added: "I've had - and

ice, Uncle? Does

myself, Emmy - a sad fool. And now here I

him. It was well-being just to lie back, every muscle relaxed. He came home from trampin

was absurd. Of course she had grown so used, in the latter years, to spending royally, that it was hard for her now to trim her sails. Just, too, when the bairns were coming to an age to appreciate the good things of life. Again, his reason nudged him with the reminder that any ultra-extravagance on her part was due, in the first place, to her ignorance of his embarrassments. He had not enlightened her . . . he never would. He felt more and more incapable of standing up to her incredulous dismay. In cold blood, it seemed impossible to face her with the tidings: "The house we live in is not our own.

ad condemned himself to one of the subtlest forms of torture invented by man: that of being under constraint to get together, by given dates, fixed sums of money. The past three months had been a nightmare. Twenty times a day he had asked himself: shall I be able to do it? And when, by the skin of his teeth, he had contrived to foot his bill and breathe more freely, behold! the next term was at the door, and the struggle had all to begin anew. And so it would go on, month after month; round and round in the same vicious circle. Or with, for sole variety, a steadi

n once recently it had flashed through his mind that, since putting up his plate, he had treated none but the simplest cases. Only the A B C of doctoring had been required of him. The fact was, specialists were all too easy to get at. But no! that wouldn't hold water either. Was it not rather he himself who, at first hint of a complication, was ready to refer a patient? . . . to shirk undue worry and responsibility? Yes, this was his own share in the failure; this, and the fact that his heart was not in the work. But inde

and regrets. Oh, fool that he had been! . . . fool and blind. To have known himself so ill! NEVER was he the man to have got himself into this pitiable tangle . . . with its continual menace of humiliation . . . disgrace. What madness had possessed him? Even in his youth, when life still

might again be well. And now insidious fancies stole upon him: fancies which, disregarding such accidents of the day as money and the lack of money, went straight to the heart of his most urgent need. To go away - go far away - from everything and every one he had known; so that what happened should happen to him only - be nobody's business but his own! Away from the crowd of familiar faces, these cunning,

timely hint from a grateful patient who was in the swim, Mahony did a little shuffle - selling, buying and promptly re-selling - with this result. True, a second venture, unaided, robbed him of the odd fifty. None the less there he stood, with his next quarter's payments in his hand. He felt more amazed than anything else by this windfall. It certainly did not set his mind at rest; it came too late

. And any passing suspicion of something being more than ordinarily amiss was apt, even as it crossed her mind, to be overlaid by, say, the size of the baker's bill, or the fact that Cuffy had again outgrown his boots. But she had also a further reason for turning a blind eye. Believing, as she truly did, that Richard's moroseness sprang mainly fro

t and lasted far into the night, she strove with him as she had never yet striven, labouring to break down his determination, to bring him back to sanity. For more, mu

fancy takes you . . . as you used to do. It didn't matter about me. But it's different now - everything's d

e considers the children but you? When their

house - our comfortable home! You know quite well you're not a young man any

u I CANNOT

ou vow you'd never again take up a country practice, because of the distances . . . and the work? How will you be able to stand it now?

d God, woman! is there no sympathy in you? . . . or only where your childr

be something very wrong somewhere. Hand over the accounts to me; let me look into your books. With no rent to pay, and three or four hundred coming in . . . besides the dividends . . . oh, would any one else - any one but you - want to throw up a certainty and drag us off up-country, just when the children are getting big and ne

ad such a heavy hand. He could hope for no tenderness of approach; no instinctive understanding meeting him half-way. She would pounce on his most intimate thoughts and feelings, drag them out int

way with you any longer. You've lost your manner - the good, doctor's manner you used to do so much with. You're too short with people nowadays; and they resent it; and go to some one who's pleasanter. I heard you just the other

d to cozen

raised herself on her elbow. "Why shouldn't we take in boarders? . . . just to tide us over till things get easier. This house is really much too big for us. One nursery woul

YOU? Not while I

funny faces, and whispered behind their hands. Cuffy, mooning about the house pale and dejected, was - as usual when Mamma and Papa quarrelled - harassed by the feeling that somehow or other he was the guilty person. He tried cosseting Mamma, hanging round her: he tr

ing for Mary; and, the door of the bedroom shut on them, broke into excited talk. It appeared that in a chance meeting that day with a fellow-medico ("Pincock, that well-known R

ely personal reasons . . . nothing to do with the practice. It arose through Pincock asking me if I knew of any one who would like to step into a really good thing. This Rummel wants to retire, but

erness ran through her that she quickly looked away again, unable to find any but bitter words to say. In this glance, however, she had for once really seen him - had not just looked, witho

and the other had replied, till, in alarm, she burst out: "I hope to goodnes

horoughly off-hand with him . . . so much so, indeed, that before night he'll no doubt have cracked the place up to half a dozen others. - Come, Mary, come! I'm not quite the fool you imagine. N

later, he took the early m

ype="