"Do you know where Arthur is?" asked Paul at breakfast.

"I do not," replied his mother.

"He is a fool," said Paul. "And if he DID anything I shouldn't mind. But
no, he simply can't come away from a game of whist, or else he must see
a girl home from the skating-rink--quite proprietously--and so can't get
home. He's a fool."

"I don't know that it would make it any better if he did something to
make us all ashamed," said Mrs. Morel.

"Well, I should respect him more," said Paul.

"I very much doubt it," said his mother coldly.

They went on with breakfast.

"Are you fearfully fond of him?" Paul asked his mother.

"What do you ask that for?"

"Because they say a woman always like the youngest best."

"She may do--but I don't. No, he wearies me."

"And you'd actually rather he was good?"

"I'd rather he showed some of a man's common sense."

Paul was raw and irritable. He also wearied his mother very often. She
saw the sunshine going out of him, and she resented it.

As they were finishing breakfast came the postman with a letter from
Derby. Mrs. Morel screwed up her eyes to look at the address.

"Give it here, blind eye!" exclaimed her son, snatching it away from
her.

She started, and almost boxed his ears.

"It's from your son, Arthur," he said.

"What now--!" cried Mrs. Morel.

"'My dearest Mother,'" Paul read, "'I don't know what made me such a
fool. I want you to come and fetch me back from here. I came with Jack
Bredon yesterday, instead of going to work, and enlisted. He said he was
sick of wearing the seat of a stool out, and, like the idiot you know I
am, I came away with him.

"'I have taken the King's shilling, but perhaps if you came for me they
would let me go back with you. I was a fool when I did it. I don't want
to be in the army. My dear mother, I am nothing but a trouble to you.
But if you get me out of this, I promise I will have more sense and
consideration. . . .'"

Mrs. Morel sat down in her rocking-chair.

"Well, NOW," she cried, "let him stop!"

"Yes," said Paul, "let him stop."

There was silence. The mother sat with her hands folded in her apron,
her face set, thinking.

"If I'm not SICK!" she cried suddenly. "Sick!"

"Now," said Paul, beginning to frown, "you're not going to worry your
soul out about this, do you hear."

"I suppose I'm to take it as a blessing," she flashed, turning on her
son.

"You're not going to mount it up to a tragedy, so there," he