lf."

His little voice sounded clear and shrill in the summer quiet of the
peaceful garden, and nurse, who had been hastening to come out to him,
heard it from the open window. David too was on his way back, and poor
Ted was soon released. But it was a bad cut--he had to be carried
into the house to have it bathed and sponged and tenderly bound up
by mother's fingers. He left off crying when he saw how sorry mother
looked.

"Ted is _so_ sorry to t'ouble thoo," he said.

"And mother is sorry for Ted," she replied. "But, my dear little boy,"
she went on, when the poor leg was comfortable and its owner forgetting
its pain on mother's knee, "don't you remember that mother told you not
to touch David's tools?"

"Oh ses," he replied. "Ted wouldn't touch zem for hisself, but it was to
_help David_," and the innocent confidence with which he looked up in
her face went to his mother's heart.

"But _still_, dear Ted, you must try to understand that what mother
says, you must do exactly. Mother likes you to be kind and helping to
people, but still mother knows better than you, and that is why, when
she tells you things, you must remember to do what she says."

Ted looked grave and a little puzzled, and seeing this his mother
thought it best to say no more just then. The lesson of obedience was
one that Ted found rather puzzling, you see, but what his mother had
said had made a mark in his mind. He thought about it often, and as he
grew bigger other things happened, as you will hear, to make him think
of it still more.

It was rather a trial to Ted not to be able to run about as usual that
afternoon, for had he done so, the cut might have begun to bleed again,
so he had to sit still in the nursery, looking out at the window and
hoping and hoping that Percy would soon come back. Once David and his
barrow passed underneath, and the gardener called up to know if Master
Ted's leg was better. Ted shook his head rather dolefully.

"Him's better," he said, "but Ted can't run about. Ted's so sad, David.
Muzzer's got letters to write and Percy's out."

A kind thought struck David. He went round to the drawing-room window
and tapped at it gently. Ted's mother was writing there. Might he
wheel Master Ted in his barrow to the part of the garden where he was
working?--he would take good care of him--"the little gentleman never
cut himself if I with him--no, indeed; I make him safe enough."

And Ted's mother consented gladly. So in a