his mother cheerfully. "It would
be unkind not to go when they are all expecting you."

"Yes," said Ted. "It would be."

So he went off to get ready; and his mother felt pleased, thinking the
dull weather had, for a wonder, affected his spirits, and that the merry
evening with his friends would do him good.

CHAPTER XII.

THE WHITE CROSS.

"It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make man better be,
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.
The lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fade and die that night
It was the plant and flower of light;
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be."
"Early Ripe."--BEN JONSON.

It seemed as if she had been right. Ted came home with bright eyes and
glowing cheeks, and said they had had an "awfully" merry evening. And
his mother went to bed with an easy mind.

But the next morning she felt less happy again, for Ted was evidently
not well. He was not very ill, but just not very well, and he hung
about in an uninterested, unsettled way, quite unlike his usual busy
briskness.

"He excites himself too much when he goes out, I think," said his
father; "we really shall have to leave off ever letting him go out in
the evening unless we are there ourselves;" and he looked a little
anxiously at Ted as he spoke, though the boy had not heard what he said.

But again this slight anxiety passed by. Then came a change in the
weather, and a sudden frost set in. Ted seemed to revive at once, and
when he heard that there was to be a whole holiday for skating, no one
was more eager about it than he. And, a little against her own feelings,
his mother let him go.

"You must be careful, Ted," she said; "you are not yet looking as well
as usual. And the ice cannot be very firm. Indeed, I almost doubt its
bearing at all. A bath in icy water would not do you any good just now."

But Ted promised to be careful, and his mother knew she could trust him.
Besides, several big boys were to be there, who would, she knew, look
after him. So Ted went, and came home saying it had been as usual
"awfully jolly;" but he did look tired, and owned himself rather so,
even though well enough to go out again in the evening with the others,
and to be one of the merriest at what the children called "a penny
reading" togethe