the room he saw Jessie half-way up the stairs.

"What are you doing now?" she cried, wrathfully. "Up to some mischief, I
doubt."

With a sudden, inexplicable rage, Hughie turned toward her.

"It's none of your business! You mind your own business, will you, and
leave me alone." The terrible emotions of the last few minutes were at
the back of his rage.

"Just wait, you," said Jessie, "till your mother comes. Then you'll hear
it."

"You shut your mouth!" cried Hughie, his passion sweeping his whole
being like a tempest. "You shut your mouth, you old cat, or I'll throw
this candle at you." He raised the candle high in his hand as he spoke,
and altogether looked so desperate that Jessie stood in terror lest he
should make good his threat.

"Stop, now, Hughie," she entreated. "You will be setting the house on
fire."

Hughie hesitated a moment, and then turned from her, and going into his
room, banged the door in her face, and Jessie, not knowing what to make
of it all, went slowly downstairs again, forgetting once more Robbie's
stockings.

"The old cat!" said Hughie to himself. "She just stopped me. I was going
to put it back."

The memory that he had resolved to undo his wrong brought him a curious
sense of relief.

"I was just going to put it back," he said, "when she had to interfere."

He was conscious of a sense of injury against Jessie. It was not his
fault that that money was not now in the drawer.

"I'll put it back in the morning, anyhow," he said, firmly. But even as
he spoke he was conscious of an infinality in his determination, while
he refused to acknowledge to himself a secret purpose to leave the
question open till the morning. But this determination, inconclusive
though it was, brought him a certain calm of mind, so that when his
mother came into his room she found him sound asleep.

She stood beside his bed looking down upon him for a few moments, with
face full of anxious sadness.

"There's something wrong with the boy," she said to herself, stooping to
kiss him. "There's something wrong with him," she repeated, as she left
the room. "He's not the same."

During these weeks she had been conscious that Hughie had changed in
some way to her. The old, full, frank confidence was gone. There was
a constraint in his manner she could not explain. "He is no longer
a child," she would say to herself, seeking to allay the pain in her
heart. "A boy must have his secrets. It is foolish in me to t