ursting into the room,
caught the boy in her arms. He was not screaming now, but white as
death and staring with fearful eyes at the bed, on which the bedclothes
were pulled back, with Meekie peering over it. The two little girls,
round-eyed and frightened, were sitting up in their cots. For a
moment, Roddy stayed rigid in her arms; then he hid his face against
her arm and broke into convulsive sobs.

"It's a big spider--all red and black--like the one that bit Bernard!"

And, in fact, from where she stood, Christine could see the monstrous
thing, with its black, furry claws, protruding eyes, and red-blotched
body, still crouching there in a little hollow at the end of the bed.
Only, the person leaning over examining it now was not Meekie but
Saltire, who had reached the nursery almost on her heels.

"I put my foot against it and touched its beastly fur!" cried Roddy,
and suddenly began to scream again.

"Roddy! How dare you make that abominable noise?"

Mrs. van Cannan's voice fell like a jet of ice-cold water into the
room. Behind her in the doorway loomed the tall figure of Saxby, the
manager, with McNeil and the others. Christine's warm heart would
never have suggested such a method of quieting the boy, but it had its
points. Roddy, though still shaking and ashen, stood up straight and
looked at his mother.

"All about a silly spider!" continued the latter, with cutting scorn.
"I am ashamed of you! I thought you were brave, like your father."

That flushed Roddy to his brows.

"It has fur--red fur," he stammered.

"You deserve a whipping for your cowardice," said Mrs. van Cannan
curtly, and walked over to the bed. "The thing is half dead, and quite
harmless," she said.

"Half dead or half drunk," McNeil jocosely suggested. "I never saw a
tarantula so quiet as that before."

"The question is how long would it have stayed in that condition?" said
Saltire significantly. "For you are mistaken about its harmlessness,
Mrs. van Cannan. It is one of the most poisonous and ferocious of its
tribe."

They had got the strangely sluggish beast off the bed by knocking it
with a stick into an old shoe, and were removing it. Christine only
vaguely heard the remarks, for Roddy hid his eyes while it was being
carried out, and was trembling violently against her. It seemed
amazing to her that Mrs. van Cannan did not realize that there was more
than mere cowardice in his behaviour. The trouble was so plain