ure I'd rather see him making bicycles.'

''Tisn't his vocation. He ought to go somewhere and get up a little war
of his own--as he once told me he should like to. We can't do without
the fighting man.'

'Will you bring Hughie up to it, then?'

Harvey fixed his eyes on a point far off.

'I fear he won't have the bone and muscle. But I should like him to
have the pluck. I'm afraid he mayn't, for I'm a vile coward myself.'

'I should like a child never to hear or know of war,' said Mrs
Frothingham fervently.

'And so should I,' Harvey answered, in a graver tone.

When Mrs. Frothingham went upstairs with the letter for Alma, he broke
open another envelope. It was from Mary Abbott, who wrote to him twice
a year, when she acknowledged the receipt of his cheque. She sent the
usual careful report concerning Wager's children--the girl now seven
years old, and the boy nine. Albert Wager, she thought, was getting too
old for her; he ought to go to a boys' school. Neither he nor his
sister had as yet repaid the care given to them; never were children
more difficult to manage. Harvey read this between the lines; for Mary
Abbott never complained of the task she had undertaken. He rose and
left the room with a face of anxious thoughtfulness.

The day was wont to pass in a pretty regular routine. From half-past
nine to half-past one Harvey sat alone in his study, not always
energetically studious, but on the whole making progress in his chosen
field of knowledge. He bought books freely, and still used the London
Library. Of late he had been occupying himself with the authorities on
education; working, often impatiently, through many a long-winded
volume. He would have liked to talk on this subject with Mary Abbott,
but had not yet found courage to speak of her paying them a visit. The
situation, difficult because of Alma's parentage, was made more awkward
by his reticence with Alma regarding the payment he made for those
luckless children. The longer he kept silence, the less easily could he
acquaint his wife with this matter--in itself so perfectly harmless.

This morning he felt indisposed for study, and cared just as little to
go out, notwithstanding the magnificent sky. From his windows he looked
upon the larch-clad slopes of Cam Bodvean; their beauty only reminded
him of grander and lovelier scenes in far-off countries. From time to
time the wanderer thus awoke in him, and threw scorn upon the
pedantries of a book-lined