His mother looked as if she would have liked to make him eat the porridge, as she had done often in that very room when he was a little pale-faced lad, with a small appetite and a strong will of his own. As it was, however, she pushed a loaf of brown bread towards him, saying that he could have some bread and butter, though it was poor stuff compared with porridge. "Are there no fresh eggs?" asked her son. Mrs. Cameron reluctantly conceded that there were such things in the house, and Bernard rang for them. After that, the breakfast proceeded in silence for a time, and then Bernard remarked that he hoped to get another situation as tutor, near London, very soon. "I have written to one or two agents," he said. "I want to get a private tutorship, if I can. It will be less disagreeable than being an under-master in a school." "Why do you want to be near London?" asked his mother, frowning. Bernard did not answer. She knew very well that he wanted to be near Doris Anderson, and he did not wish to discuss Doris with her. During his illness, it had been one of his heaviest afflictions that he could not escape from the sound of his mother’s voice, as she railed against Doris and her parents. "Has the newspaper come?" he asked presently. "Yes." Mrs. Cameron pointed to the local daily newspaper lying on the sideboard; and, as her son rose to get it, she remarked: "I cannot think why the postman has not come." "Oh, he has. I took the letters from him at the door, as I was passing it----" "You did?" Mrs. Cameron looked annoyed. "How often have I requested you to allow Jane to bring the letters into the room in a decent manner!" she snapped. "They were only for me. Surely a man is entitled to his own letters!" "Whom were they from?" was the next sharp question, as his mother looked keenly at him over her glasses. "I really don’t know. I simply glanced at them to see----" He stopped short, not caring to say that, as there was not a letter from Doris, he had not deemed the others worthy of immediate consideration. Thrusting his hand into his pocket, he produced a couple of unopened letters. "We will see what this one is," he remarked with an attempt at cheerfulness, taking up a table knife and cutting open an envelope. "Ha!" he exclaimed as he read. "Oh, mother! Oh, how good of Mr. Hamilton! How good of him! What a boon!--what a great boon for us!" "What is it? What do you mean?" exclaimed his mother, in great excitement. "Read it," he said, handing her the letter, and leaning back quite faint and dizzy with surprise and gladness not unmingled with sorrow. [Illustration: "’READ IT,’ HE SAID, HANDING HER THE LETTER."] Adjusting her glasses, his mother read the letter, which was from a well-known firm of lawyers in Birmingham. "DEAR SIR,