"Really important news," Hazel said, "and not altogether good," she added, rather at a loss to know how to follow Teddie’s wise dictate, of which her own heart so wholly approved. "It cannot be altogether bad," her mother returned, "though half afraid: you also look very glad about something, Hazel." "Well," Hazel responded, "I must not keep you on tenterhooks, mother; so, if you promise to keep before you the delicious, really delicious, view of the case, and try not to mind the—er—rather awkward side, I will tell you. Teddie has been sack—has been dismissed, you know," Hazel amended, then paused and regarded her mother apprehensively. To her immense relief, Helen, albeit a little startled at this really alarming intelligence, was smiling at her daughter’s ingenuous way of breaking the same. "One can’t help being glad, can one?" Hazel said simply, her countenance radiant, quite mistaking the tenor of her mother’s thoughts. And the girl, fully reassured, dropped all hesitancy of speech and, becoming less guarded in the expression of her exultant joy, proceeded without further dalliance to lay before her mother a hundred-and-one good reasons for rejoicing in the return of this redoubtable youngest son, only lamenting the lack of a fatted calf for killing. "We must hope that he will find something to do before leaving his present position," Helen remarked, Stroking the soft pink cheek, as Hazel, having exhausted her repertory to hand, paused to collect further store wherewith to swell the arguments in favour of her generous premises. Her raptures thus unwittingly checked, she could only gaze upon her mother in mute dismay, truly concerned to find that so important a detail of the momentous announcement had yet to be imparted. "Dearest," she said at length, "that is not likely. He has so little time—the—the fact is, he is coming home to-day"; and she drew from her bosom, where it had lain, carefully concealed, the fateful pink paper. "Hazel," her mother exclaimed, more alarmed than the girl had yet seen her, "what can he have done to be dismissed at a moment’s notice? Something must be seriously wrong!" "He has probably shied an inkpot at Carrots’ head," Hazel returned laconically. "But, motherling, he may get some job or another quite quickly. You know what taking manners Teddie has, how every one likes him the first moment of seeing him." "Hazel, my dear child, what extraordinary expressions! You really must not use such words," Helen remonstrated, her breath fairly taken away by the girl’s remarkable suggestion as the solution of the proposition, and her glib and peculiar phraseology in wording it. "And why," Helen proceeded, "why should you imagine that Teddie, a gentleman—a Le Mesurier—should so demean himself as to throw inkpots at—er—at Carrots, did you say, dear? at Carrots’ head? Who is Carrots, pray?"