Her_,--when it's your mother,--you have to."

A great time went by, measureless by clock-ticks and aching little
heart-beats. It seemed to be weeks and months to Russy. Then he began
to feel a slow relief creeping over his misery, and he said to
himself the Lie must have "dropped off." There was not a sound of it
in the room. It grew so still and beautiful that Russy laughed to
himself in his relief. He wanted to leap to his feet and dance about
the room, but he thought of the sharp corners and hard edges of
things in time. Instead, he nestled among the cushions of the
window-seat and laughed on softly. Perhaps it was all over,--perhaps
it wasn't asleep, but had gone away--to Barney Toole's, perhaps,
where they regularly "put up" Lies,--and would never come back! Russy
gasped for joy. Perhaps when you'd never shaken hands with a Lie but
once in your life, and that time you _had_ to, and you'd borne it,
anyway, for what seemed like weeks and months,--perhaps then they
went away and left you in peace! Perhaps you'd had punishment enough
then.

Very late Russy's mother came up-stairs. She was very tired, and her
pretty young face in the frame of soft down about her opera-cloak
looked a little cross. Russy's father plodded behind more heavily.

"The boy's room, Ellen?--just this once?" he pleaded in her ear. "It
will take but a minute."

"I am so tired, Carter! Well, if I must-- Why, he isn't in the bed!"

The light from the hall streamed in, showing it tumbled and tossed as
if two had slept in it. But no one was in it now. The mother's little
cry of surprise sharpened to anxiety.

"Where is he, Carter? Why don't you speak? He isn't here in bed, I
tell you! Russy isn't here!"

"He has rolled out,--no, he hasn't rolled out. I'll light up--there
he is, Ellen! There's the little chap on the window-seat!"

"And the window is open!" she cried, sharply. She darted across to
the little figure and gathered it up into her arms. She had never
been frightened about Russy before. Perhaps it was the fright that
brought her to her own.

"He is cold,--his little night-dress is damp!" she said. Then her
kisses rained down on the little, sleeping face. In his sleep, Russy
felt them, but he thought it was Jeffy's mother kissing Jeffy.

"It feels good, doesn't it?" he murmured. "I don't wonder Jeffy
likes it! If my mother kissed _me_-- I told Jeffy she did! It was a
Lie, but I had to. You have to, when they say things like that ab