is father.

"Well, all's well that ends well," said Aunt Amy, with a sniff. In spite
of that momentary softness over the defeat of the Dean's Ernest she
liked her young nephew no better than of old. She had desired that he
should be punished for this, but as she looked at the melting eyes of
Mrs. Cole and Miss Jones she had very little hope.

Mary was forgotten; no one noticed her.

"Bed," said Mrs. Cole.

"Really, what a terrible affair," said Miss Jones. "And I can't help
feeling that it was my fault."

"What Mary--" began Mrs. Cole. And then she stopped. She had perhaps
some sense that Mary had already received sufficient punishment.

Mary waited, standing against the passage wall. Jeremy, who had not
seen her, vanished into his room. She waited, then plucking up all
her courage with the desperate suffocating sense of a prisoner laying
himself beneath the guillotine, she knocked timidly on his door.

He said: "Come in," and entering, she saw him, in his braces, standing
on a chair trying to put the picture entitled "Daddy's Christmas"
straight upon its nail. The sight of this familiar task--the picture
would never hang straight, although every day Jeremy, who, strangely
enough, had an eye to such matters, tried to correct it--cheered her a
little.

"Won't it go straight?" she said feebly.

"No, it won't," he began, and then, suddenly realising the whole
position, stopped.

"I'm sorry, Jeremy," she muttered, hanging her head down.

"Oh, that's all right," he answered, turning away from her and pulling
at the string. "It was a beastly thing to do all the same," he added.

"Will you forgive me?" she asked.

"Oh, there isn't any forgiveness about it. Girls are queer, I suppose.
I don't understand them myself. There, that's better... I say, it was
simply beastly under that tree--"

"Was it?"

"Beastly! There was something howling somewhere--a cat or something."

"You do forgive me, don't you?"

"Yes, yes... I say, is that right now? Oh, it won't stay there. It's the
wall or something."

He came down from the chair yawning.

"Jim's nice," he confided to her. "He's going to take me ratting one
day!"

"I'm going," Mary said again, and waited.

Jeremy coloured, looked as though he would say something, then, in
silence, presented a very grimy cheek. "Good-night," he said, with an
air of intense relief.

"Good-night," she said, kissing him.

She closed the door behind her. She knew that the worst