"Oh, they're all manly!" I said. "But I always think the refined and clever ones are really the manliest and bravest. Just as it is always the people brought up in luxury that can live a rough life most successfully. A man came to me the other day and said he wanted to marry, but he didn't want to choose a lady because he was going out to Canada and he wanted to rough it; and I told him that he was making a mistake and that if he really wanted somebody who would do hard and even degrading work he must get a lady above all things, and that the more softly brought up she'd been the better she'd do the nastiest jobs. You can never get a servant to clean up after a dog, but you'll see duchesses doing it by the dozen at fashionable dog shows. And boys and men are like that. It isn't always the hulking footballer who will volunteer first to lead a forlorn hope." The night on which, at the Paris hotel, I said Yes once more to Little Yeogh Wough's cry of: "Come and see me in bed, mother!" is a night which I shall never forget. There was gaiety all round us in the great building, from whose courtyard there came up to us sounds of voices and laughter mingling with the roll of carriages and the clatter of cars. But we were too happy to be gay. Our heads were resting on the same pillow and the boy of my heart was patting my cheek with one small, but very strong and brown hand. "It's so nice to have you come in and talk to me again, Big Yeogh Wough," he said a little tremblingly. "Yes. It is very nice," I agreed. "You won't drive me away from you again, will you?" "No. I'll be good. It's been perfectly beastly having you angry with me. And to-morrow you'll let me buy you some flowers, won't you? I've got enough of my pocket money to buy some tulips. Oh, it's very early for them, I know, and they'll cost a lot; but it pays to get them, because they die so prettily. Other flowers look ugly when they're dying, but tulips don't." "That's their Compensation for looking vulgar when they're alive," thought I. But I did not say so. And then we began to sing together, very low, a little song of the French navy, which I had taught him a few months before. Oh, the joyous freedom and swing that he put into that song--he, a small child, lying there in bed and singing! Two or three months later, when we had left Paris and were at home again in London, I got an example of his courage. Ever since he had been going to school and so had been out of reach of the care of nurses, he had had cold after cold. Much good did it do for me to live a life of perpetual watchfulness in the house, taking care that he should get continual fresh air without any draughts, when at his school there was no watch kept and he was allowed to sit for hours between two open windows, or between an open window and an open door! So the colds went on into tonsilitis, and at last he was very ill and had to have a serious operation.