y unlikely to have done it for fun. What, then, did it mean?

He came down full of these thoughts, and rather ashamed of being late,
wondering whether his mother would have waited for him (which would have
annoyed him), or if she would have finished her breakfast (which would
have annoyed him still more). Happily for Elinor, she had hit the golden
mean, and was pouring out for herself a second cup of coffee (but Philip
was not aware it was the second) when the boy appeared. She was quite
restored to her usual serenity and freshness, and as eager to know how
he had enjoyed himself as she always was. He gave her a brief sketch of
the play and of what pleased him in it as in duty bound. "But," he
added, "what interested me almost more was that we had a sort of
a--little play of our own."

"What?" she cried, with a startled look in her eyes. One thing that
puzzled him was that she was so very easily startled, which it seemed to
Philip had never been the case before.

"Well," he said, "the lady was there whom Uncle John met in the
park--and the girl with her--and I believe the little dog. She made all
sorts of signs to him, but he took scarcely any notice. But that's not
all, mother----"

"It's a good deal, Pippo----"

"Is it? Why do you speak in that choked voice, mother? I suppose it is
just one of his society acquaintances. But the thing was that before
the last act somebody else came forward to the front of the box, and
fixed--I was going to say his eyes, I mean his opera-glasses upon us."

Philip had meant to say upon me--but he had produced already so great
an effect on his mother's face that he moderated instinctively the point
of this description. "And stared at us," he added, "all the rest of the
time, paying not the least attention to anything that was going on.
It's a queer sensation," he went on, with a laugh, "to feel that black
mysterious-looking thing like the eyes of some monster with no speculation
in them, fixed upon you. Now, I want you to tell me---- What's the
matter, mother?"

"Nothing, Pippo; nothing," said Elinor, faintly, stooping to lift up a
book she had let fall. "Go on with your story. I am very much
interested; and then, my dear?"

"Mother," cried Philip, "I don't know what has come over you, or over
me. There's something going on I can't understand. You never used to
have any secrets from me. I was always in your confidence--wasn't I,
mother?"

It was not a book she had let fall, but