th Theo than with anybody. What
was he talking of to-day, for instance, when I was away?"

The question was put so suddenly that she was almost embarrassed by it.
"He was saying that he wished to be your tutor, Geoff. It was very kind.
To save me from parting with you,--which I think would be more than I
could bear,--and to save me the trouble of having a--strange gentleman
in the house."

"But he would be a strange gentleman, just the same."

"He is a friend, the kindest friend; and then he would not be in the
house. He wants to come over every day, just for your lessons. But it is
too much,--it is too much to accept from any one," she said suddenly,
struck for the first time with this view.

"That would be very jolly!" cried Geoff. "I should like that: if he came
only for my lessons, and then went away: and afterwards there would be
only you and me,--nobody but you and me, just as we used to be all the
time, before----"

"Oh, don't say that! We were not always alone--before; there was----"

"I know," said the little boy; but after a moment's pause he resumed:
"You know that generally we were alone, mamma. I like that,--you and me,
and no one else. Yes, let Theo come and teach me; and then when lessons
are over go away."

Lady Markland laughed. "You must think it a great privilege to teach
you, Geoff. He is to be allowed that favour,--to do all he can for
us,--and as soon as he has done it to be turned from the door. That
would be kind on his part, but rather churlish on ours, don't you
think?"

"Oh," said the boy, "then he does it for something? You said tutors
worked for money, and that Theo was well off, and did not want money.
I see; then he wants something else. Is no one kind just for kindness?
Must everybody be paid?"

"In kindness, surely, Geoff."

The boy looked at her with his little twinkling eyes and a twist in
the corner of his mouth. Perhaps he did not understand the instinctive
suspicion in his mind,--indeed, there is no possibility that he could
understand it; but it moved him with a keen premonition of danger. "I
should think it was easiest to pay in money," he said, with precocious
wisdom. "How could you and me be kind?"

They strolled homeward during this conversation along the bare avenue,
through the lines of faint, weak-kneed young trees which had been planted
with a far-off hope of some time, twenty years hence, filling up the
gaps. Little Geoff, with all the chaos of ideas in his m