turned into a look that lingered
Robin jumped up and inquired if he should not put it in the passage.
"It's in the way here," he explained; though in whose way it could be
was not apparent, the table being perfectly empty.

Priscilla made no objection, and he at once removed it beyond the
reach of his mother's eye, propping it up in a dark corner of the
passage and telling Mrs. Pearce, whom he found there that it was Mr.
Neumann's umbrella.

"No it ain't," said Mrs. Pearce.

"Yes it is," said Robin.

"No it ain't. He's took his to Minehead," said Mrs. Pearce.

"It is, and he has not," said Robin.

"I see him take it," said Mrs. Pearce.

"You did not," said Robin.

This would have been the moment, Mrs. Morrison felt, for her to go and
to carry off Robin with her, but she was held in her seat by the
certainty that Robin would not let himself be carried off; and sooner
than say good-bye and then find he was staying on alone she would sit
there all night. Thus do mothers sacrifice themselves for their
children, thought Mrs. Morrison, for their all too frequently
thankless children. But though she would do it to any extent in order
to guard her boy she need not, she said to herself, be pleasant
besides,--she need not, so to speak, be the primroses on his path of
dalliance. Accordingly she behaved as little like a primrose as
possible, sitting in stony silence while he skirmished in the passage
with Mrs. Pearce, and the instant he came in again asked him where he
had found the umbrella.

"I found it--not far from the church," said Robin, desiring to be
truthful as long as he could. "But mater, bother the umbrella. It
isn't so very noble to bring a man back his own. Did you get your
cottages?" he asked, turning quickly to Priscilla.

"Robin, are you sure it is his own?" said his mother.

"My dear mother, I'm never sure of anything. Nor are you. Nor is Miss
Schultz. Nor is anybody who is really intelligent. But I found the
thing, and Mr. Neumann--"

"The name to-day is Neumann-Schultz," said Mrs. Morrison, in a voice
heavy with implications.

"Mr. Neumann-Schultz, then, had been that way just before, and so I
felt somehow it must be his."

"Your Uncle Cox had one just like it when he stayed with us last
time," remarked Mrs. Morrison.

"Had he? I say, mater, what an eye you must have for an umbrella. That
must be five years ago."

"Oh, he left it behind, and I see it in the stand every time I go
through th