o on.

"Oh, mummy," I went on quickly. You know how I said it, Tom--the way I
told you after that last row that Dan Christensen wasn't near so
good-looking as you--remember? "Oh, mummy, you don't know how good it
feels to get home. Out there at that awful college, studying and
studying and studying, sometimes I thought I'd lose my senses. There's
a girl out there now suffering from nervous prostration. She worked so
hard preparing for the mid-years. What's her name? I can't think--I
can't think, my head's so tired. But it sounds like mine, a lot like
mine. Once--I think it was yesterday--I thought it was mine, and I made
up my mind suddenly to come right home and bring it with me. But it
can't be mine, can it? It can't be my name she's got. It can't be,
mummy, say it can't, say it can't!"

Tom, I ought to have gone on the stage. I'll go yet, when you're sent
up some day. Yes, I will. You'll be where you can't stop me.

I couldn't see the Bishop, but the Dowager--oh, I'd got her. Not so
bad an old body, either, if you only take her the right way. First, she
was suspicious, and then she was scared. And then, bit by bit, the
stiffness melted out of her, her arms came up about me, and there I
was, lying all comfy, with the diamonds on her neck boring rosettes in
my cheeks, and she a-sniffling over me and patting me and telling me
not to get excited, that it was all right, and now I was home mummy
would take care of me, she would, that she would.

She did. She got me on to a lounge, soft as--as marshmallows, and she
piled one silk pillow after another behind my back.

"Come, dear, let me help you off with your coat," she cooed, bending
over me.

"Oh, mummy, it's so cold! Can't I please keep it on?"

To let that coat off me was to give the whole thing away. My rig
underneath, though good enough for your girl, Tom, on a holiday, wasn't
just what they wear in the Square. And, d'ye know, you'll say it's
silly, but I had a conviction that with that coat I should say good-by
to the nerve I'd had since I got into the Bishop's carriage,--and from
there into society. I let her take the hat, though, and I could see by
the way she handled it that it was all right--the thing; her kind, you
know. Oh, the girl I got it from had good taste, all right.

I closed my eyes for a moment as I lay there and she stood stroking my
hair. She must have thought I'd fallen asleep, for she turned to the
Bishop, and holdin