re floated upside down in pools, and just as the
morning was getting too good to last, they would have to go home to
dinner, joining on to the procession of people returning up the cliffs.
Michael would be armed with a spade, a boat with very wet sails, and
sometimes with a pail full of sea-water and diminutive fish that died
one by one in the course of the afternoon heat. After dinner Mrs. Fane
would lie down for a while, and Michael would lie down for a great treat
beside her and keep breathless and still, watching the shadows of light
made by the bellying of the blind in the breeze. Bluebottles would
drone, and once to his bodeful apprehension a large spider migrated to
another corner of the ceiling. But he managed to restrain himself from
waking his mother.

One afternoon Michael was astonished to see on the round table by the
bed the large photograph in a silver frame of a man in knee-breeches
with a sword--a prince evidently by his splendid dress and handsome
face. He speculated during his mother's sleep upon this portrait, and
the moment Annie had left the cup of tea which she brought in to wake
his mother Michael asked who the man was.

"A friend of mine," said Mrs. Fane.

"A prince?"

"No, not a prince."

"He looks like a prince," said Michael sceptically.

"Does he, darling?"

"I think he does look like a prince. Is he good?"

"Very good."

"What's wrote on it?" Michael asked. "Oh, mother, when will I read
writing?"

"When you're older."

"I wish I was older now. I want to read writing. What's wrote on it?"

"Always," his mother told him.

"Always?"

"Yes."

"Always what? Always good?"

"No, just plain 'always,'" said Mrs. Fane.

"What a funny writing. Who wrote it?"

"The man in the picture."

"Why?"

"To please mother."

"Shall I write 'always' when I can write?" he asked.

"Of course, darling."

"But what is that man for?"

"He's an old friend of mother's."

"I like him," said Michael confidently.

"Do you, darling?" said his mother, and then suddenly she kissed him.

That evening when Michael's prayers were concluded and he was lying very
still in his bed, he waited for his mother's tale.

"Once upon a time," she began, "there was a very large and enormous
forest----"

"No, don't tell about a forest," Michael interrupted. "Tell about that
man in the picture."

Mrs. Fane was staring out of the window, and after a moment's hesitation
she turned round.

"Because t