"It will pass, it will pass!" she repeated. He tried to overwhelm in a frenzied absorption in his work the lurking fear which gnawed at his heart-strings. Soon it was found imperative to move her bed from the upstairs bedroom to the parlour below. The pale thinning face would intervene between him and the page. He would draw back in a sudden access of terror. "It will be all right!" he assured himself, "All the really hot days of summer are to come yet!" One thing at least he could do. He would get a first-rate place in the exams. He knew how that would delight her. He was sure it would help her no end. He thrust himself wholly into his books. He did so well at the examination that a bursary was awarded him which put his position at school beyond all peril for another two years. "Mother!" he burst in one day. "Such good news!" She lifted her head tiredly. "Tell me, my son!" "I've got a huge scholarship and school's absolutely right now, nothing to fear! Tell me, mother, aren't you horribly excited! Isn't it fine!" But looking down on her face, he found it wet with tears. An ice-sharp dismay leapt to his heart. "Mother, aren't you glad? You ought to be laughing! I never expected anything like it! Oh, mother, why on earth are you crying? What's it all about?" "Thou wilt not understand, Philip! But it is nothing! I'm not really crying! Nothing, nothing! See, my face is dry! Kiss me, Feivele!" He bent down to her. For an hour he talked to her of the new confidence his success had brought him and what he was going to do when he left school. He might even go to the University! No, he would not be a doctor! His ambitions hadn't taken shape yet, but he might be.... Oh, he didn't know what he mightn't be if he only tried! And he'd have such a house for her to live in...! He fell to describing the house of his dreams ... until at length Channah came in. She was ending her button-hole labours earlier, nowadays, in order to have more time to attend to her mother.