"No. That's true; he don't tell no lies. But that isn't from loving the truth. It's only because 'e won't be beaten at it. 'E's that full of pride and vanity, he don't know what to do with himself. All these children is full of pride and vanity. When they goes out, if you please, they don't want to go where other people goes, so when we're in the country we 'ides behind a bush so as we can't see nobody and nobody can't see us, and when we're up 'ere in London we goes down back streets where there's nobody else goes but dustmen and cats. And it's all Master Roland's teaching of 'em. He've been making Miss Clare think she's an artist now, and you ought to see our Macademy up on the nursery walls. She've been in a temper all this day because I won't sit with nothing on for 'er to make a picture of Venus rising from the sea." Meanwhile, Little Yeogh Wough played croquet desperately on the lawn between the banks of marguerites. (Dear marguerites! I remember how, whenever he was near them, they all took on a Frenchy gaiety and distinction that lent a new charm to their English prettiness and purity.) He was not allowed to play with his little sister and brother, because he thought too much of himself and too little of them. He was then told off to play with any friends of the family who happened to be on a visit at the house, and the end of this usually was that when in the evening he came to say good night and made his unfailing appeal: "Come and see me in bed, mother," I answered him severely: "No, Roland. You behaved too badly at croquet to-day." He stood and looked at me wistfully. He always did this when I rebuked him. He never asked questions in words, but only with his big brown eyes. "I happened to be upstairs at the open nursery window and I saw you and heard you," I went on. "You were most rude to Mr. ----. If you ever play croquet with him again you will have the goodness to remember that he is a married man of fifty-five and not another boy of fourteen, like yourself, and you will treat him with respect." "But he got my ball at the beginning of the game and put it through all the hoops and I couldn't get it back!" "Don't make excuses. Leave those to weak characters. An excuse is always worse than the thing it tries to cover up. You lost your temper and forgot your manners, and you will not play croquet again for a fortnight." This meant a fortnight of proud, dignified unhappiness. And it was while this fit of quiet bitterness was still on him that he did a dreadful thing. One day, when I came home after having been out two or three hours, I found an ominous grimness in the atmosphere of the house, and everybody I met seemed to have a longer upper lip than usual. "What's the matter?" I asked Miss Torry, who had a horror-stricken look. "It's Roland. He has been up in the nursery and knocked his sister down and trampled on her. It's a wonder that he hasn't broken any of her ribs."