count?"

"There, I won't say any more, mother dear," said Roy, clinging to her
arm; "and now I'll confess something."

"You have something to confess?" said Lady Royland, excitedly, as she
stopped where they were, just beneath the corner tower, and quite
unconscious of the fact that a head was cautiously thrust out of one of
the upper windows and then drawn back, so that only the tip of an ear
and a few curls were left visible. "Then, tell me quickly, Roy; you
have been keeping back some news."

"No, no, mother, not a bit; just as if I would when I know how anxious
you are! It was only this. Old Ben is always grumbling about the place
going to ruin, as he calls it, and I told him, to please him, that he
might clean up some of the big guns."

"But you should not have done this, my dear."

"No; I'll tell him not to, mother. And I'd made an arrangement with him
to meet him every morning out in the primrose dell to practise
sword-cutting. I was going to-morrow morning, but I won't go now."

Lady Royland pressed her lips to the boy's forehead, and smiled in his
face.

"Thank you, my dear," she said, softly. "Recollect you are everything
to me now! And I want your help and comfort now I am so terribly alone.
Master Pawson is profuse in his offers of assistance to relieve me of
the management here, but I want that assistance to come from my son."

"Of course!" said Roy, haughtily. "He's only the secretary, and if any
one is to take father's place, it ought to be me."

"Yes; and you shall, Roy, my dear. You are very young, but now this
trouble has come upon us, you must try to be a man and my counsellor so
that when your father returns--"

She ceased speaking, and Roy pressed her hands encouragingly as he saw
her lips trembling and that she had turned ghastly white.

"When your father returns," she said, now firmly, "we must let him see
that we have managed everything well."

"Then why not, as it's war time, let Ben do what he wanted, and we'll
put the place in a regular state of defence?"

"No, no, no, my dear," said Lady Royland, with a shudder. "Why should
you give our peaceful happy home even the faintest semblance of war,
when it can by no possibility come into this calm, quiet, retired nook.
No, my boy, not that, please."

"Very well, mother. Then I'll go riding round to see the tenants, and
look after the things at home just as you wish me to. Will that do?"

Lady Royland smiled, and then pr