hadn't got up to breakfast. She had not been able to
go to sleep the night before--really she had had a lot of worries
lately--and then when she did, it was so nearly morning that she slept
on ever so much longer than usual. For she's not a bit lazy, like some
mothers I know.

When she _does_ have breakfast in bed, she lets me look after her. It's
awfully jolly. Father is sure to say as he goes off, 'You'll see to your
mother, Jack.'

The girls don't mind. Anne wouldn't be much good at anything like
that--at least, she wouldn't have been _then_, though she's ever so much
better _now_ about forgetting things, and spilling things, and seeming
as if all her fingers were thumbs, you know. Hebe is very handy, and
she always was. But she never put herself before Anne, and so we got in
the way of me being the one to do most for mums. I told you at the
beginning--didn't I?--that some people might think me rather a girl-y
boy, but I don't mind one scrap of an atom if they do. I have my own
ideas. I know the splendidest cricketer and footballer you ever saw is a
fellow whose sister's a cripple, and she can't bear any one to lift her
but him, because he's so gentle. And I've seen a young doctor in our
village doing up a baby that was burnt nearly to death, as if _his_
fingers were fairy's, and afterwards I heard that he'd been the bravest
of the brave in some awful battles in Burmah, or somewhere like that.
Indeed, he got so wounded with cutting in to carry out the men as they
dropped--it was what they call a skirmish, I think, not a proper battle
where they have ambulances and carrying people and everything ready, I
suppose--that he's had to leave off being a soldier-doctor for good.

And now that the girls know it can't be for long, except in holidays,
that I can look after mums, they're very good about letting me be with
her as much as I can. And I've got them into pretty good ways. I don't
think she'll miss me so _very_ much when I go.

Well, I settled the breakfast tray with Rowley, and nothing was
forgotten. I let Rowley carry it up, because I knew it was safer for her
to do it, and there's no sense in bragging you're bigger than you are,
and can carry things that need long arms when you know you can't. But I
walked beside her, opening the doors and watching that the things didn't
slide about; that's how I always do. And then when the tray was safe on
the bed, and I had arranged the 'courses,' first the roll and butter an