ng Lucille with silly wings (like a
beastly goose or turkey in dear old Cook's larder), with a long
trumpet, perhaps, in a kind of night-gown, flying about the place, it
wasn't decent at all--Dearest and Lucille, whom he adored and
hugged--unsympathetic, cold, superior, unhuggable, haughty; and the
boy who was very, _very_ tender-hearted, would throw his arms round
Dearest's neck and hug and hug and hug, for he abhorred the thought of
her becoming a beastly angel.

Surely, if God knew His business, Dearest would be always happy and
bright and live ever so long, and be ever so old, forty years and
more.

And Dearest, fearing that her idolized boy might grow up a man
like--well, like "Grumper" had been--hard, quarrelsome, adventurous,
flippant, wicked, pleasure-loving, drunken, Godless ... redoubled her
efforts to Influence-the-child's-mind-for-good by means of the
Testaments and Theology, the Covenant, the Deluge, Miracles, the
Immaculate Conception, the Last Supper, the Resurrection, Pentecost,
Creeds, Collects, Prayers.

And the boy's mind weighed these things deliberately, pondered them,
revolted--and rejected them one and all.

Dearest had been taken in....

He said the prayers she taught him mechanically, and when he felt the
need of real prayer--(as he did when he had dreamed of the Snake)--he
always began, "If you _are_ there, God, and _are_ a good, kind God"
... and concluded, "Yours sincerely, Damocles de Warrenne".

He got but little comfort, however, for his restless and logical mind
asked:--

"If God _knows_ best and will surely _do_ what is best, why bother
Him? And if He does not and will not, why bother yourself?"

But Dearest succeeded, at any rate, in filling his young soul with a
love of beauty, romance, high adventure, honour, and all physical,
mental, and moral cleanliness.

She taught him to use his imagination, and she made books a necessity.
She made him a gentleman in soul--as distinct from a gentleman in
clothes, pocket, or position.

She gave him a beautiful veneration for woman that no other woman was
capable of destroying--though one or two did their best. Then the
sad-eyed lady was superseded and her professional successor, Miss
Smellie, the governess, finding the boy loved the Sword, asked Grumper
to lock it away for the boy's Good.

Also she got Grumper to dismiss Nurse Beaton for impudence and not
"knowing her place".

But Damocles entered into an offensive and defensive a