I sat down on the chair and leaned over Harry, smoothed his hair from his brow, and kissed him. I might as well have kissed the bed-post. He is a peculiar boy--a little hard-natured and perverse--and he can never bear anybody to pity him. I was not surprised that he repulsed me, though I felt dreadfully hurt. My beloved Bobby--my angel, whom I never rightly appreciated until I had lost him--he was quite different. He kissed me back again, and whimpered when I talked to him, and told me he had never meant to be as naughty as father thought. Bless him! I knew he never did. I told him so. But even then he was just a little reserved with me, as if he could not quite forgive me for what I had brought upon him--which was bitter enough at the time, but an agony to think of afterwards, as it is to this day. So I went away to my room and cried in the dark, utterly miserable. And I thought to myself, "If this is how they feel towards me, how will they regard their father, who has treated them so brutally? Why, they will never have an atom of affection for him again!" But when I went back to them, hoping for a warmer welcome, and anxious about their poor empty stomachs, there was Tom, sitting on the chair between their beds, chatting to them, and they to him, as if nothing had occurred--aye, although Waif had been deposed and banished. Another chair had been dragged up, and a tray stood on it--a tray piled with food, duck and sweetbread, cold beef and tongue, all mixed together--which he was serving out in lavish helpings, with plenty of bread-and-butter. Harry, leaning on his elbow, rested his head on his father's arm; Bob, crouched at his knees on the floor, looked up at him with his dear merry eyes, that bore no malice--not even a reproach. They did not see me at the door, where I stood a minute to watch them, suffocated by the sense of being shut out. I did not think it was quite right of Tom. But I did not say so. When he called to me to come in and be apologised to--the boys did it handsomely, but still rather perfunctorily, I fancied--I was glad to let bygones be bygones, and to feel we were a united family once more. And I thought the incident ended there. Nothing more was said about it while Tom remained at home, and he went away as usual, giving me--even me--not the faintest indication of what was in his mind. So that I was completely dumfoundered when, on his next return, he said, in a tremulous tone of voice and with quite a tragic air generally: "Well, Polly, I've done it." "_What?_" I cried, guessing his meaning in an instant, for I remembered his remark at tea that night when we were all so unhappy. "You _don't_ mean to say you have thrown up your command--thrown away everything--just _now_, when we want so badly to increase our income and not to lessen it--without a word of warning?"