But this morning he did not feel his customary joy. Closing his window and dressing slowly, he wondered what was the matter. What could it be? It was not his eye--certainly it was a funny colour this morning and it hurt when you touched it, but he was proud of that. No, it was not his eye. And it was not the dog, who came into his room, after scratching on the door, and made his usual morning pretence of having come for any other purpose than to see his friend and master, first looking under the bed, then going up to the window pretending to gaze out of it (which he could not do), barking, then rolling on a square of sunlit carpet, and, after that, lying on his back, his legs out stiff, his ridiculous “Imperial” pointed and ironical, then suddenly turning, with a twist on his legs, rushing at last up to Jeremy, barking at him, laughing at him, licking him, and even biting his stockings--last of all seizing a bedroom slipper and rushing wildly into the schoolroom with it. No, there was nothing the matter with Hamlet. Nor was there anything the matter with Miss Jones, free, happily, from her customary neuralgia, and delighted with the new number of the Church Times. Nor was it the breakfast, which to-day included bacon and strawberry jam. Nor, finally, was it Mary or Helen, who, pleased with the summer weather (and Mary additionally pleased with the virtues of Lance as minutely recorded in the second volume of “The Pillars of the House”), were both in the most amiable of tempers. No, it must be something inside Jeremy himself. He waited until the end of breakfast to ask his question: “Can I go and see Mother, Miss Jones?” Mary and Helen looked across at him inquisitively. “What do you want to see your mother for now, Jeremy? You always see her at twelve o'clock.” Miss Jones pushed her spectacles lower upon her nose and continued her reading. “I want to.” “Well, you can't now.” “Why not?” “Because I say not--that's enough.” But Jeremy was gentle to-day. He got off his chair, went round to Miss Jones's chair, and, looking up at her out of his bruised eye, said in the most touching voice: “But, please, Miss Jones, I want to. I really do.” Then she said what he had known all the time was coming: “I'm afraid you won't see your mother to-day, dear. She's not well. She's in bed.” “Why? Is she ill?” “She's tired after her journey yesterday, I expect.” He said no more.