ise in the house they were at once sharply rebuked. They
began to think it was their turn to be petted and coaxed, and have
everyone waiting on them; but to their own disappointment and the relief
of the household their turn never came, and they remained in the most
perfect health.

Perhaps Ambrose, in spite of all his privileges, did not feel himself
much to be envied. It was nice, of course, to have mother reading
_Ivanhoe_ aloud, and to be surrounded by attention, and for everyone to
be so particularly kind, but there were other things that were not nice.
It was not nice to have such bad headaches, or to lie broad awake at
night and feel so hot, and try in vain to find a cool place in bed. And
it was not nice to have such funny dreams, half awake and half asleep,
in which he was always fighting or struggling with something much
stronger than himself.

Through all these conflicts he had a confused sense that if he overcame
his enemy his father would trust him again, for since the adventure of
the crock the vicar's words had always been on Ambrose's mind. He had
been continually on the look-out for some great occasion in which he
might prove that he was trustworthy, and now that he was feverish and
ill this idea haunted him in all sorts of strange shapes. Sometimes it
was a tall black knight in mailed armour, with whom he must fight
single-handed; sometimes a great winged creature covered with scales;
sometimes a swift thing like a lizard which he tried to catch and could
not, and which wearied him by darting under rocks and through crevices
where he could not follow.

But whatever shape they took, in one respect Ambrose's dreams were
always alike--he was never successful. Always striving, and pursuing,
and fighting, and never victorious, it was no wonder that he was worn
out and quite exhausted when morning came. As he got better, and the
fever left him, the dreams left him too, but the idea that had run
through them was still there, and he thought about it a great deal.

What could he do to make his father trust him? He pondered over this
question in his own mind without talking of it to anyone. If Pennie had
been there he could have told her about it, but he knew Nancy would only
laugh, so he kept it to himself and it got stronger every day. This was
partly because he had so much more time than usual on his hands, before
he was considered quite well enough to go into the school-room and
employ himself