Dick gave his friend a hug of gratitude, and kissed Pat's silky head
before he went away. And he hurried home and washed the dinner things,
and cleared up the untidy kitchen like one in a dream. Sometimes it
seemed to Dick that all his work went for nothing at all, for Mrs.
Fowley always muddled things as soon as she came in.

She might have kept the house well on her husband's wages, but a large
slice went to the "Blue Dragon," and out of the remainder she never had
any left by the middle of the week. And she never did any work that
could possibly be handed over to Dick, and the boy was in very truth
the "slavey" they called him, and he rarely had enough to eat. Now she
told him that he must stay away from school that afternoon and mind the
baby, as she had business down the road at a neighbour's. And slipping
a black bottle under her apron, she went out, and Susy, the youngest
but one, followed her, leaving the baby fretting in the old wooden box
that served as cradle.

As soon as Dick had finished he took her out into the dreary little
garden and tried to pacify her. She was generally good with him, but
the heat, and teething, had made her fretful, and he had to walk up and
down the cinder path till his arms ached almost beyond bearing. She
went to sleep at last, and Dick sat down and took a tattered book from
his pocket and began to read once more the story of Richard the King.

It was the story that he loved best in the history lessons, for his own
name was Richard Hart Crosby, and the fancy had come into his life like
a sunbeam, that he might be Richard Lionheart too.

There were no books in the Fowleys' kitchen, and none of the children
went to Sunday school regularly. Just for a week or two before the
annual treat, or Christmas tree, they would go in great force, but Dick
could not be spared.

But he had one other little book that was kept as a hidden
treasure--his mother's Bible, that she had left to him. And in that he
had learned how to be a true Lionheart and a good soldier of Jesus
Christ. And every day he managed to read a few verses at least.

Now, as the sultry afternoon wore away, and the baby still slept, he
thought again and again of the discovery he had made, that he did not
really belong to the Fowleys.

"I _have_ tried to please them and be brave and do my duty because
they've given me a home," he reasoned to himself, "but perhaps if they
had money when father died, I'm not behold