"Afraid?" she said, laying away the folded cloth and taking out another from the deep press, oaken, with smooth-worn, brown iron hinges and lock; "never seen thy father and mother, forsooth!" "Perhaps it was the fever," said Dickie, feeling rather deceitful. "You said it made me forget things. I don't remember them. Not at all, I don't." "Do not say that to them," the nurse said, looking at him very gravely. "I won't. Unless they ask me," he added. "Oh, nurse, let me do something too. What can I do to help?" "Thou canst gather such flowers as are left in the garden to make a nosegay for thy mother's room; and set them in order in fair water. And bid thy tutor teach thee a welcome song to say to them when they come in." Gathering the flowers and arranging them was pleasant and easy. Asking so intimate a favor from the sour-faced tutor whom he so much disliked was neither easy nor pleasant. But Dickie did it. And the tutor was delighted to set him to learn a particularly hard and uninteresting piece of poetry, beginning-- "Happy is he Who, to sweet home retired, Shuns glory so admired And to himself lives free; While he who strives with pride to climb the skies Falls down with foul disgrace before he dies." Dickie could not help thinking that the father and mother who were to be his in this beautiful world might have preferred something simpler and more affectionate from their little boy than this difficult piece whose last verse was the only one which seemed to Dickie to mean anything in particular. In this verse Dickie was made to remark that he hoped people would say of him, "He died a good old man," which he did _not_ hope, and indeed had never so much as thought of. The poetry, he decided, would have been nicer if it had been more about his father and mother and less about fame and trees and burdens. He felt this so much that he tried to write a poem himself, and got as far as-- "They say there is no other Can take the place of mother. I say there is no one I'd rather See than my father." But he could not think of any more to say, and besides, he had a haunting idea that the first two lines--which were quite the best--were not his own make-up. So he abandoned the writing of poetry, deciding that it was not his line, and painfully learned the dismal verses appointed by his tutor. But he never got them said. When the bustle of arrival had calmed a little, Dickie, his heart beating very fast indeed, found himself led by his tutor into the presence of the finest gentleman and the dearest lady he had ever beheld. The tutor gave him a little push so that he had to go forward two steps and to stand alone on the best carpet, which had been spread in their honor, and hissed in a savage whisper-- "Recite your song of welcome."