ing to school, carrying her books for her, the envied
of all the boys. He remembered how he had fought Tony Josephs because
Tony had the presumption to bring her spice apples: he had thrashed
him too, so soundly that from that time forth none of the schoolboys
presumed to rival him in Lisbeth's affections--roguish little Lisbeth!
who grew prettier and saucier every year.

He recalled the keen competition of the old days when to be "head of
the class" seemed the highest honour within mortal reach, and was
striven after with might and main. He had seldom attained to it
because he would never "go up past" Lisbeth. If she missed a word, he,
Robert, missed it too, no matter how well he knew it. It was sweet to
be thought a dunce for her dear sake. It was all the reward he asked
to see her holding her place at the head of the class, her cheeks
flushed pink and her eyes starry with her pride of position. And how
sweetly she would lecture him on the way home from school about
learning his spellings better, and wind up her sermon with the frank
avowal, uttered with deliciously downcast lids, that she liked him
better than any of the other boys after all, even if he couldn't spell
as well as they could. Nothing of success that he had won since had
ever thrilled him as that admission of little Lisbeth's!

She had been such a sympathetic little sweetheart too, never weary of
listening to his dreams and ambitions, his plans for the future. She
had always assured him that she knew he would succeed. Well, he had
succeeded--and now one of the uses he was going to make of his success
was to turn Lisbeth and her children out of their home by way of
squaring matters with a dead man!

Lisbeth had been away from home on a long visit to an aunt when he had
left Chiswick. She was growing up and the childish intimacy was
fading. Perhaps, under other circumstances, it might have ripened into
fruit, but he had gone away and forgotten her; the world had claimed
him; he had lost all active remembrance of Lisbeth and, before this
late return to Chiswick, he had not even known if she were living. And
she was Neil Jameson's widow!

He was silent for a long time, while the waves purred about the base
of the big red sandstone rock and the boy returned to his _Crusoe_.
Finally Robert Turner roused himself from his reverie.

"I used to know your mother long ago when she was a little girl," he
said. "I wonder if she remembers me. Ask her when you go