er when she went in to "tuck him up."

"I tell you what it is, mother," said he. "It's a awful responsibility
for a chap having not to disappoint his mother or his only gran'mother,
either of 'em. Now I was just thinkin'--Granny's so set on my bein' a
statesman--and you'd like me to be a great writer. Well-- _I might be
both!_ Dizzy was, you know. Don't you think if I was a great novelist
and Prime Minister, both at once, that would be a solution?"

Sophy hugged him and replied with perfect gravity that she thought it
would certainly be "a solution."

"Well, I'm glad," sighed Bobby, settling back upon his pillow. "'Cause
if you _hadn't_ thought so, I don't think I'd have slept a wink
to-night. I'll write Granny first thing to-morrow. She's leaving after
lunch. She told me to be sure to tell you so you'd send your letters to
her at Dynehurst when you wrote."

But three days later, about six o'clock in the afternoon, a motor from
the Hiltons' swept again round the lawn at Breene, and in this motor was
Lady Wychcote.

This time, it happened to be Sophy and Amaldi who were sitting out under
the big beech. Bobby was there, too. He was leaning with both arms on
Amaldi's knee, and looking up eagerly into the young man's face. Amaldi
had been telling him some of the adventures of Orlando Furioso.

This time Amaldi had not come down from London for the day, but had also
motored over with Olive Arundel from her country place some fifteen
miles distant. Susan and Olive were in the house, superintending the
hanging of an old print that the latter had brought over for Sophy's
writing-room.

Sophy was frankly surprised to see her mother-in-law.

"Why, I thought you were at Dynehurst!" she exclaimed. "Bobby sent you a
letter there yesterday."

"No. Mary persuaded me to stop on another week. I came to bring Robert a
book I promised him."

"Oh, thank you, Granny!" said the boy. He held up his cheek to be
kissed, received the rather forbidding looking volume that she held out,
and retired soberly with it. It was called _Lives of Noted Statesmen,
Condensed_. Bobby could not quite make out whether it meant that the
lives or the statesmen were condensed. In any case it promised to be but
a dull exchange for the adventures of Orlando. And then it was always so
much jollier to be told a thing than to read it.

Lady Wychcote said affably to Amaldi:

"I shall flatter myself that if you'd known I was still here you'd have
come to