es to you. And if I do not like it, it is because he has a
good house of his own."

"Ah, the Warren!" said Geoff: then he added, pulling all the reels about
in the work-table, and without raising his eyes to her face, "If he is
coming, I wish he would come, Mrs. Warrender, then perhaps I should go
to school. Don't you think school is a good thing for a boy?"

"Everybody says so, Geoff."

"Yes, I know--it is in all the books. Mrs. Warrender, if--Warrender is
coming to live with us, will you be a sort of grandmother to me?"

This startled her very much. She looked at the odd child with a
sensation almost of alarm.

"Because," he continued, "I never had one, and I could come and talk to
you when things were bad."

"I hope you will never have any experience of things being bad, Geoff."

He gave a glance at her face, his hands still busy among the threads and
needles.

"Oh no, never, perhaps--but, Mrs. Warrender, if--Warrender is coming to
Markland to live, _I_ wish he would do it now, directly. Then it would
be settled what was going to be done with me--and--and other things."
Geoff's face twitched more than ever, and she understood that the reason
why he did not look at her was because his little eyelids were swollen
with involuntary tears. "There are a lot of things--that perhaps would
get--settled then," he said.

"Geoff," she said, putting her arm round him, "I am afraid you don't
like it any more than I do, my poor boy."

Geoff would not yield to the demoralising influence of this caress. He
held himself away from her, swaying backwards, resisting the pressure
of her arm. His eyelids grew bigger and bigger, his mouth twitched and
quivered. "Oh, it is not that," he said, with a quiver in his voice, "if
mamma likes it. I am only little, I am rather backward, I am
not--company enough for mamma."

"That must be one of the things that the servants say. You must not
listen, Geoff, to what the servants say."

"But it is quite true. Mamma knows just exactly what is best. I used to
be the one that was always with her--and now it is Warrender. He can
talk of lots of things--things I don't understand. For I tell you I am
very backward, I don't know half, nor so much as half, what some boys do
at my age."

"That is a pity, perhaps; but it does not matter, Geoff, to your--to the
people who are fond of you, my dear."

"Oh yes, it does," cried the boy; "don't hold me, please! I am a little
beast, I am not grateful t