"How cross you are with him, Arnold!" spoke his step-mother when the doctor came down again, leaving Dicky howling on his pillow for the top. "It needs some one to be cross with him," observed Dr. Knox. "He is only a little boy, remember." "He is big enough and old enough to be checked and corrected--if it ever is to be done at all. I will see you to-morrow: I wish to have some conversation with you." "About Dicky?" she hastily asked. "About him and other things. Mina," he added in a low tone, as he passed her on his way out, but I, being next to him, caught the words, "I did not like to see you at the gate with Captain Collinson at this hour. Do not let it occur again. Young maidens cannot be too modest." And, at the reproof, Miss Mina coloured to the very roots of her hair. II. They sat in the small garden-room, its glass-doors open to the warm spring air. Mrs. Knox wore an untidy cotton gown, of a flaming crimson-and-white pattern, and her dark face looked hot and angry. Dr. Knox, sitting behind the table, was being annoyed as much as he could be annoyed--and no one ever annoyed him but his step-mother--as the lines in his patient brow betrayed. "It is for his own good that I suggest this; his welfare," urged Dr. Knox. "Left to his own will much longer, he must not be. Therefore I say that he must be placed at school." "You only propose it to thwart me," cried Mrs. Knox. "A fine expense it will be!" "It will not be your expense. I pay his schooling now, and I shall pay it then. My father left me, young though I was, Dicky's guardian, and I must do this. I wonder you do not see that it will be the very best thing for Dicky. Every one but yourself sees that, as things are, the boy is being ruined." Mrs. Knox looked sullenly through the open doors near which she sat; she tapped her foot impatiently upon the worn mat, lying on the threshold. "I know you won't rest until you have carried your point and separated us, Arnold; it has been in your mind to do it this long while. And my boy is the only thing I care for in life." "It is for Dicky's own best interest," reiterated Dr. Knox. "Of course he is dear to you; it would be unnatural if he were not; but you surely must wish to see him grow up a good and self-reliant man: not an idle and self-indulgent one." "Why don't you say outright that your resolve is taken and nothing can alter it; that you are going to banish him to school to-morrow?" "Not to-morrow, but he shall go at the half-quarter. The child will be ten times happier for it; believe that." "Do you _really_ mean it?" she questioned, her black eyes flashing fury at Arnold. "Will nothing deter you?"