ours and hours the trains (for she had to change
twice) rushed on through the slow-dying autumn evening and night, and
part of the next day. Then at last London--a rush in a hansom to
Victoria from Charing Cross, and the familiar little journey homewards.
It was about three o'clock when she reached Kingsmead, and raining hard.

"'Is lordship is--still alive, my lady," Jarvis told her, choking a
little, "but--pretty bad, my lady." Tommy had always laughed at Jarvis'
manner, but Brigit liked it now.

The drive seemed endless, but at length there was the lodge, and the
carp-pond, and the tennis-court, and--the beautiful old house, all
blurred in the driving rain.

"Her ladyship is upstairs, my lady." And Brigit ran up the shallow,
red-carpeted steps. But who was this old woman wrapped in a white shawl.

"Brigit----"

It was Lady Kingsmead, and Brigit, looking at her mother, almost fainted
for the first time in her life.

"How is he?" she gasped, leaning against the wall and wondering why it
was so unsteady.

"He--his throat is better, but--he is very weak and--delirious. His
brain, they say, is--over-active." Poor Lady Kingsmead burst into tears,
wiping her eyes on the fringe of her shawl.

Brigit patted the strangely shrunken head compassionately. "Don't cry,
mother," she said. "Is he in his room?"

"No--in the boudoir. His chimney smokes so in the autumn, you know."

Tommy lay in his own brass bed in the silken nest of his mother, a
white-capped nurse by his side. The little boy's face was flushed and
his head tossing restlessly to and fro on the embroidered pillows.
"There's no use," he was muttering. "I tell you, it's quite silly to
waste time; you should have begun long ago. He always said so, and he's
right."

Brigit sat down by him. "Here's Bicky," she said, "with the Master's
love for you, Tommy."

"He's gone away. Ratting with the Prince of Wales. Let's play his fiddle
before he comes back. I've got that last exercise beautifully--only my
little finger is so beastly short. If I'd been whipped when I was a kid
it might have grown--there it goes! Hi, Pincher, after him!"

The nurse rose and moistened her patient's lips with water.

"How is he, nurse?" asked Brigit shortly.

"His throat's better, miss--my lady. But he's very weak. These
active-minded little boys----"

"I know; I know," interrupted the girl hastily. "When will he know me?"

The nurse hesitated. How could she tell? The relations al