stion, and that a little
medicine would put it right.

Mary was quite helpless. What is a child to do if she is jealous? Other
children do not understand her, her elders laugh at her. Mary, with a
wisdom greatly beyond her years, realised very quickly that this was
some sort of horrible disease, with which she must wrestle alone. Above
all, she must never allow Jeremy to know anything about it. He was, of
course, sublimely unaware of the matter; he knew that Mary was silly
sometimes, but he attributed that to her sex; he went on his way,
happily indifferent whether anyone cared for him or no...

Mary suffered agonies when, as sometimes happened, Jeremy sat with his
arm round Helen's neck and his cheek up against hers. She suffered when,
in a mood of tempestuous affection to the whole world, he kissed Miss
Jones. She even suffered when he sat at his mother's feet whilst she
read "The Dove in the Eagle's Nest," or "Engel the Fearless."

Most of all, however, she suffered over Hamlet. She knew that at this
present time Hamlet was the one creature for whom Jeremy passionately
cared. He loved his mother, but with the love that custom and habit
has tamed and modified, although since Mrs. Cole's illness in the early
summer he had cared for her in a manner more demonstrative and openly
affectionate. Nevertheless, it was Hamlet who commanded Jeremy's heart,
and Mary knew it. Matters were made worse by the undoubted truth that
Hamlet did not care very much for Mary--that is, he never gave any signs
of caring, and very often walked out of the room when she came into it.
Mary could have cared for the dog as enthusiastically as Jeremy--she was
always sentimental about animals--but now she was shut out from their
alliance, and she knew that when she came up to them and began to pat or
stroke Hamlet, Jeremy was annoyed and Hamlet's skin wriggled in a kind
of retreating fashion under her fingers. Wise people will say that it
is impossible for this to be a serious trouble to a child. It was
increasingly serious to Mary.

Jeremy was not, perhaps, so tactful as he might have been. "Oh bother,
Mary!" he would say. "You've gone and waked Hamlet up!" or "Don't stroke
Hamlet that way, Mary; he hates it!" or "No, I'm going for a walk with
Hamlet; we don't want anyone!" Or Hamlet himself would suddenly bark at
her as though he hated her, or would bare his teeth and grin at her in a
mocking, sarcastic way that he had. At first, as an answer t