lows to say, 'Oh, I saw your sisters, Markland.'"

"Your sisters!" Theo could scarcely contain his disgust, all the more
that he saw the old butler keeping an eye upon him with a sort of
severity. The servants in the house, Theo thought, all took part with
Geoff, and looked to him as their future master. He continued hastily:
"I can only hope they will prefer the Warren, as I do, for that will be
their home."

"Oh!" cried Geoff again, opening round eyes. "But if it isn't our home,
how can it be theirs? They don't want a home all to themselves."

"I think they do," said Theo shortly.

The boy gave him a furtive glance, and thought it wise to change the
subject. "Mrs. Warrender is there now. Oh, I say! she will be granny to
the babies. I should like to call her granny too. Will she let me, do
you think, Warrender? She is always so kind to me."

"I should advise you not to try."

"Why, Warrender? Would she be angry? She is always very kind. I went to
see her once, as soon as she came home, and she was awfully kind, and
understood what I wanted." Geoff paused here, suddenly catching himself
up, and remembering with a forlorn sense that he had gone a long way
beyond that in his little life, the experiences which were sufficiently
painful, of that day.

"It requires a very wise person to do that," said Warrender, with an
angry smile.

"Yes, to understand you quite right even when you don't say anything. I
say, Warrender, if mamma has to go away for a change, when shall we go?"

"We!" said Warrender significantly. "Are you also in want of a change?"

The boy looked up at him suddenly, with a hasty flush. The tears came to
his brave little eyes. He was over-powered by the sudden suggestion, and
could not find a word to say.

"Markland is the best change for you, after Eton," said Theo. "You don't
want to travel with a nursery, I suppose."

Geoff felt something rise in his throat. Why, it was his own nursery, he
wanted to say. It was his own family. Where should he go but where they
went? But the words were stopped on his lips, and his magnanimous little
heart swelled high. Oh, if he could but fly to his mother!--but to her
he had learnt never now to fly.

"Wherever we may go," said Warrender coldly, "I think you had much
better spend your holidays here;" and he got up from the table, leaving
Geoff in a tumult of feelings which words can scarcely describe. He had
suffered a great deal during the past year, and had