Lady Baltimore, who has stood immoveable during the attack upon her, always with that cold, white, beautiful look upon her face, now points to the stricken child lying panting, laughing, and playing with the dog at his father's feet. "There is a reason!" says she, almost inaudibly. Baltimore shakes his head. "I have thought all that out. It is not enough," says he. "Bertie!" says his mother, turning to the child. "Do you know this, that your father is going to leave you?" "Going?" says the boy vaguely, forgetting the dog for a moment and glancing upward. "Where?" "Away. Forever." "Where?" says the boy again. He rises to his feet now, and looks anxiously at his father; then he smiles and flings himself into his arms. "Oh, no!" says he, in a little soft, happy, sure sort of a way. "Forever! Forever!" repeals Isabel in a curious monotone. "Take me up," says the child, tugging at his father's arms. "What does mamma mean? Where are you going?" "To America, to shoot bears," returns Baltimore with an embarrassed laugh. How near to tears it is. "Real live bears?" "Yes." "Take me with you"? says the child, excitedly. "And leave mamma?" "Oh, she'll come, too," says Bertie, confidently. "She'll come where I go." Where he would go--the child! But would she go where the father went? Baltimore's brow darkens. "I am afraid it is out of the question," he says, putting Bertie back again upon the carpet where the fox terrier is barking furiously and jumping up and down in a frenzied fashion as if desirous of devouring the child's legs. "The bears might eat you. When you are big and strong----" "You will come back for me?" cries Bertie, eagerly. "Perhaps." "He will not," breaks in Lady Baltimore violently. "He will come back no more. When he goes you will never see him again. He has said so. He is going forever!" These last two terrible words seem to have sunk into her soul. She cannot cease from repeating them. "Let the boy alone," says Baltimore angrily. The child is looking from one parent to the other. He seems puzzled, expectant, but scarcely unhappy. Childhood can grasp a great deal, but not all. The more unhappy the childhood, the more it can understand of the sudden and larger ways of life. But children delicately brought up and clothed in love from their cradle find it hard to realize that an end to their happiness can ever come. "Tell me, papa!" says he at last in a vague, sweet little way. "What is there to tell?" replies his father with a most meagre laugh, "except that I saw Beecher bringing in some fresh oranges half an hour ago. Perhaps he hasn't eaten them all yet. If you were to ask him for one----" "I'll find him," cries Bertie brightly, forgetting everything but the present moment. "Come, Trixy, come," to his dog, "you shall have some, too."