d about you. I hope Mr. Rooke is
well and Cuckoo and Bunny."

Bunny was the youngest hope of the Rooke household, a wise, fat,
golden-haired child, who had taken a huge fancy to Nelly. At the mention
of his name his mother faltered. She had been used to swear by Bunny's
sagacity. Bunny had been fond of Nelly Drummond; and there had been a
time when Bunny's mother had referred to that fact as though it were
Nelly's patent of nobility.

"Cuckoo is at school. Bunny hasn't been very well. Those east winds in
May caught him. I had a horrible fright about him. Imagine
Bunny--Bunny--choking with croup! I thought I should have gone mad!"

For the moment she had forgotten Nelly's offences, and only remembered
that she had been Bunny's friend. Nelly looked back at her as aghast as
herself.

"Croup! I never thought of such a thing," she responded. "He has never
had it before, has he?"

"Never. That was why I was so terrified. I didn't know what to do.
There, don't look so frightened about it! It is over--weeks ago. Indeed,
the next day he was about, as well as ever. I should never be so
frightened again. It was the horrible novelty of it."

That frightened look in Nelly's eyes had softened the little woman's not
very hard heart.

"I wish I had known," said Nelly. "I have wanted to come to see Bunny. I
brought him a toy from Paris--a lamb that walks about by itself."

"Ah! you were thinking of him!"

There was complete reconciliation now in the mother's voice and eyes.
How could she hate the girl who loved Bunny and had remembered to bring
him from Paris a lamb that walked about by itself? She put an impulsive
hand on Nelly's arm.

"Come home with me and see him. You are not very busy? You can spare the
time?"

Nelly was on her way to keep a dress-making appointment, but she felt
that not for worlds would she have said so. She flushed up quite
happily. That moment of hostility on Mrs. Rooke's part had chilled her
sensitive soul.

"Might I call at Sherwood Square for the lamb, do you think?" she asked
diffidently.

"To be sure you may. And I'll tell you what--stay to lunch with me.
There'll be nobody but ourselves, of course. It comes to me now that I
haven't seen you for centuries."

"Yes; I should like to stay for lunch, thank you."

Mrs. Rooke rather wondered at the pale determination which came over
Nelly's soft face, succeeding the flush of a minute before. It did not
occur to her that Nelly had been pushin