, but Dick had followed them to the dining-room
door. It was holiday-time, yet Dick was going to Chelmsford for an
examination. He had come out intending to ask his father before he went
to London for half a crown. Dick was just at the age when schoolboys try
to appear exactly the reverse from what they are. He squabbled
constantly with Dorothy, though he loved her very much, and now, when he
heard his father sigh, he put his hands in his pockets as if he didn't
care about anything, and went upstairs whistling.

When Dick got to his room, he took a money-box from the mantelpiece and
smashed it open with the poker. He had been saving up for a new bat, and
the box contained seven shillings. He put the money in his pocket and
ran down again in a great hurry.

"Dick! Dick!" exclaimed his mother, catching him. "Come here! Let me
brush your collar. How rough your hair is! Dick, you must have a new
hat! You can't go into the hall with that one."

"All serene, mother," said the boy, submitting impatiently to be
overhauled. "I can buy a new hat and pitch the old one away."

"How grandly some people talk!" said his mother, pinching his ear. "As
if the world belonged to them. Well, never mind, dear boy! If you get on
well and _pass_, no one will remember your hat was shabby. Have you got
your fare?"

[Sidenote: A Telegram]

"Oh, mother, how you _do_ worry!" exclaimed Dick, wrenching himself
away; "I've got lots of money--_heaps_!"

He ran across the lawn, and just because he knew she was watching,
jumped right over the azalea-bushes and wire fence instead of going out
at the gate, and yet the tired look went out of Mrs. Graham's eyes, and
a smile crept round her mouth as she watched him.

Dorothy, standing at the dining-room window, saw him go too, and thought
how horrid it was of Dick to look so glad when she was so unhappy.

"Boys are always like that," she thought. "They don't care a bit about
any one but themselves."

Mrs. Graham came back into the room holding a telegram in her hand which
she tore open quickly. Her face went red and then rather white.

"What is it, mother?" said Dorothy eagerly. "Have they arrived?"

"They have been in London two days," said Mrs. Graham, with a curious
catch in her breath, and she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece.
"They want me up for a day's shopping. If I had known, I could have gone
with father."

Dorothy stood staring at her mother with wide-open eyes. Half a dozen