ory life, as the Prayer-book says, how can
one ever be certain what is going to happen? All was well at home. I knew
exactly (I thought) what they would have to say to me: "The weather has
been so fine, that Roland has not once gone by train, and he enjoys the
ride beyond anything." "Dear papa, be sure that you don't forget
anything, but bring us so-and-so, and so-and-so,"--a list as long as my
arm. Dear girls and dearer mother! I would not for the world have
forgotten their commissions, or lost their little letters, for all the
Benbows and Crosses in the world.

But I was confident in my home-comfort and peacefulness. When I got back
to my club, however, three or four letters were lying for one, upon some
of which I noticed the "immediate," "urgent," which old-fashioned people
and anxious people still believe will influence the post-office and
quicken the speed of the mails. I was about to open one of these, when
the club porter brought me two telegrams, one of which, he said, had
arrived the night before. I opened, as was to be expected, the last
first, and this was what I read: "Why don't you come or answer? For God's
sake, come. He is much worse." This was a thunderbolt to fall upon a
man's head who had one only son, and lie the light of his eyes! The other
telegram, which I opened with hands trembling so much that I lost time by
my haste, was to much the same purport: "No better; doctor afraid of
brain-fever. Calls for you day and night. Let nothing detain you." The
first thing I did was to look up the time-tables to see if there was any
way of getting off sooner than by the night-train, though I knew well
enough there was not; and then I read the letters, which furnished, alas!
too clearly, all the details. They told me that the boy had been pale for
some time, with a scared look. His mother had noticed it before I left
home, but would not say anything to alarm me. This look had increased day
by day: and soon it was observed that Roland came home at a wild gallop
through the park, his pony panting and in foam, himself "as white as a
sheet," but with the perspiration streaming from his forehead. For a long
time he had resisted all questioning, but at length had developed such
strange changes of mood, showing a reluctance to go to school, a desire
to be fetched in the carriage at night,--which was a ridiculous piece of
luxury,--an unwillingness to go out into the grounds, and nervous start
at every sound, that his mo