n him. Her Billy was a man! Then she noticed how thin he
was, and how his mouth drooped, and how black the circles were under his
big eyes.

Had they been cruel to him in camp? They could be so cruel; but then,
Billy was a favourite.

What had happened?

It was proof of Billy's spiritual and physical change that Peggy did not
cuff him and demand an explanation.

CHAPTER XV

Billy ate long and uninterruptedly. Peggy supplied his demands before
they were voiced, and Maggie, the small and unimpressed sister, eyed him
from across the table with keen, unsympathetic stare. Occasionally she
made known her opinions with a calm, sisterly detachment that roused no
resentment in the new being who had hurled himself upon them.

"You eat like a real pig," Maggie remarked with a sniff. She was being
trained for the bungalow fete, and she had suffered in the process.

Billy eyed her indifferently.

"Push them 'taters nearer," was all he replied.

"Your father'll kill you," Peggy ventured timidly, as she filled Billy's
cup for the fourth time with a concoction which passed in St. Ange for
coffee, because Leon Tate so declared it.

"No, he won't, neither," Billy said; "nobody ain't ever going to kill
me, never!"

He turned a tense, defiant face to his mother, but there was something
in his eyes that drew tears to Peggy's. She came behind his chair and,
half afraid, let her hand rest upon his thin shoulder.

Wonder of wonders! Billy did not shake off the unfamiliar caress. On
the contrary he smiled into the work-worn face above him.

"Ain't Billy terrible speckled when the tan's off?" Maggie broke in,
"and his hair's as red as my flannel petticoat."

Peggy cast a threatening glance at her daughter.

"Clear off the table!" she commanded, for Billy was at last finished.

Maggie set about the task with relief. Something was afoot that she
could not understand. Maggie was not spiritually constructed, but she
was going to be a woman some day!

"Mother!" Generally Billy addressed her as "say!" "Mother, I'm going
over to Hillcrest to school. I'm going to work when I can, and--make
somewhat of myself."

Maggie dropped a cup, and, because she happened to be near her mother,
Peggy relieved her own feelings by boxing the girl's ears. Then she
turned again to her man-child and stared stupidly.

Poor downtrodden Peggy! She was at a crisis of motherhood that is common
to high and low. Since Mary of Galilee found her son