woman, have guessed that she was really saying good-bye to him?

Reader, picture to yourself that simple little boy playing about the
house at this time, on the understanding that everything was going on
as usual. Have not his toys acquired a new pathos, especially the engine
she bought him yesterday?

Did you look him in the face, Mary, as you gave him that engine? I envy
you not your feelings, ma'am, when with loving arms he wrapped you round
for it. That childish confidence of his to me, in which unwittingly he
betrayed you, indicates that at last you have been preparing him for the
great change, and I suppose you are capable of replying to me that David
is still happy, and even interested. But does he know from you what it
really means to him? Rather, I do believe, you are one who would not
scruple to give him to understand that B (which you may yet find stands
for Benjamin) is primarily a gift for him. In your heart, ma'am, what do
you think of this tricking of a little boy?

Suppose David had known what was to happen before he came to you, are
you sure he would have come? Undoubtedly there is an unwritten compact
in such matters between a mother and her first-born, and I desire to
point out to you that he never breaks it. Again, what will the other
boys say when they know? You are outside the criticism of the Gardens,
but David is not. Faith, madam, I believe you would have been kinder to
wait and let him run the gauntlet at Pilkington's.

You think your husband is a great man now because they are beginning to
talk of his foregrounds and middle distances in the newspaper columns
that nobody reads. I know you have bought him a velvet coat, and that
he has taken a large, airy and commodious studio in Mews Lane, where you
are to be found in a soft material on first and third Wednesdays. Times
are changing, but shall I tell you a story here, just to let you see
that I am acquainted with it?

Three years ago a certain gallery accepted from a certain artist a
picture which he and his wife knew to be monstrous fine. But no one
spoke of the picture, no one wrote of it, and no one made an offer for
it. Crushed was the artist, sorry for the denseness of connoisseurs was
his wife, till the work was bought by a dealer for an anonymous client,
and then elated were they both, and relieved also to discover that I was
not the buyer. He came to me at once to make sure of this, and remained
to walk the floor gloriously as he to