patient with her stories, never asked her
advice about anything, and never played with her. Was he growing very
conceited? Was it because he was going to school, and thought himself
too old for his sisters? No, he did not seem to be conceited--he had
always been proud, but never conceited. It was rather as though he had
lately had thoughts of his own, almost against his will, and that these
had shut him off from the people round him.

Then, when their mother was so ill and Barbara made her startling
appearance Jeremy kept more to himself. He never talked about his
mother's illness, as did the others, and yet Mary knew that he had
been more deeply concerned than any of them. She had been miserable, of
course, but to Jeremy it had been as though he had been led into a new
world altogether; Helen and she were still in their old places, and
Jeremy had left them.

At last just before they all moved to Cow Farm Mary made a silly scene.
She had not intended to make a scene. Scenes seemed to come upon her,
like evil birds, straight out of the air, to seize her before she knew
where she was, to envelop and carry her up with them; at last, when all
the mischief was done, to set her on her feet again, battered, torn and
bitterly ashamed. One evening she was sitting deep in "Charlotte Mary,"
and Hamlet, bunched up against his master's leg, stared at her. She had
long ago told herself that it was ridiculous to mind what Hamlet
did, that he was not looking at her, and, in any case, he was only a
dog--and so on.

But to-night she was tired, and had read so long that her head
ached--Hamlet was laughing at her, his eyes stared through his hair at
her, cynically, superciliously, contemptuously. His lip curled and
his beard bristled. Moved by a sudden wild impulse she picked up "The
Chaplet of Pearls" and threw it at him. It hit him (not very severely),
and he gave the sharp, melodramatic howl that he always used when it was
his dignity rather than his body that was hurt. Jeremy looked up,
saw what had happened, and a fine scene followed. Mary had hysterics,
stamped and screamed and howled. Jeremy, his face white, stood and said
nothing, but looked as though he hated her, which at that moment he
undoubtedly did. It was that look which more than anything else in the
world she dreaded.

She made herself sick with crying; then apologised with an abjection
that only irritated him the more; finally remembered the smallest
details of the a