"You doesn’t go," Edmund argued, staring gloomily at Mr. Wycherly. "Why mus’ I?" "You must go because your dear aunt wishes it," Mr. Wycherly replied, ignoring the first part of Edmund’s remark. "Would you go if see wissed it?" "I would. But you see, for me it is different. I was brought up in a different kind of church, and I am no longer a little boy. Miss Esperance has never asked me to go to church with her." "Why hasn’t see ast you?" "Because, as I tell you, I was brought up in a different church." "Why can’t I be brought up in your church? Then we needn’t neither of us never go," Edmund suggested, smiling radiantly, as though he had solved the difficulty. Mr. Wycherly sighed deeply. "But I did go," he exclaimed. "I always went when I was a little boy, every Sunday, and afterward at Oxford I went nearly every day as well." Edmund’s face fell. He desired to belong to no church that required daily attendance. Mr. Wycherly’s looks were so serious that the little boy began to be anxious. "What will Aunt Esp’ance do, do you sink?" "I fear she will feel compelled to punish you." "Bed?" Edmund inquired uneasily. "No, I fear, I very greatly fear it will be dinner——" Mr. Wycherly felt the little figure stiffen in his arms, as without a word Edmund laid his head down on his old friend’s shoulder. The child lay quite still, and glancing down at him Mr. Wycherly saw how the red mouth drooped at the corners, and the blue eyes were screwed up tight to keep back the tears. No such dread contingency had crossed Edmund’s mind till this moment, and it swept over him with devastating force. Not to share in the Sunday dinner, that cheerful meal, when Mr. Wycherly made jokes and Aunt Esperance sat beaming in her Sunday silks; when hungry little boys were never refused two, even three, helpings of everything. It was a dreadful dispensation. Edmund gave a short, smothered sob and buried his face in Mr. Wycherly’s neck. "Perhaps," the grave voice went on, and Edmund opened one tearful eye, as though the gloom of his outlook were pierced by some ray of hope, "perhaps if you went to your aunt and told her how sorry you are, and that you promise on your honour as a gentleman you will never try to get out of going to church again—perhaps she might forgive you this once. If you can tell her this and mean it, my son, every word, I think that she may be induced to forgive you—just this once." The green gate creaked, there was a rush of feet on the staircase as Montagu made straight for Mr. Wycherly’s room. "Here you are," he exclaimed. "I thought you’d be here somehow—what’s the matter?" Mr. Wycherly put Edmund gently from off his knee, and rose from his chair. "Wait here with Montagu, sonnie," he said. "I will see Miss Esperance first," and he left the room, carefully shutting the door behind him. "Is Aunt Esp’ance very sorry?" Edmund asked anxiously. He did not ask if she were angry, for that she had never been with him.