Wynne Rendall returned home for the summer vacation in his seventeenth year. He was heavily laden with prizes and lightly poised with enthusiasm. In every department of learning, save only mathematics, had he borne himself with honourable success. It was not unnatural, therefore, he should have looked for some expression of rejoicing from his parents, but herein he was destined to be disappointed. His father had not returned from the City when he arrived, but he found his mother in the drawing-room. Her old allegiance to embroidering antimacassars had by no means abated with years, and as Wynne entered she was still mismating her coloured silks with the afore-time guarantee of hideousness. But even this circumstance would not staunch the enthusiasm Wynne felt in his own prowess. The desire to impart the news of his successes was perhaps the youngest trait in his character, so when the greeting was over he broke out: “I’ve done simply splendidly, mother. I’ve simply walked away with all the prizes, and the classic master says my Greek verses are the best the school has ever produced.” His eyes sparkled as though to say, “There, what do you think of that?” Had Mrs. Rendall known it she would have recognized that here was a moment to win a large measure of her son’s affection. Encouragement given at the right time is the surest road to the heart. But hers, alas! was not an analytic mind. All she contrived to say was: “Oh, yes. Well, that’s quite nice, isn’t it?” “Oh!” exclaimed Wynne. “You’re hopeless.” And that is a very dreadful thing for a boy to say to his mother—and a more dreadful thing for him to feel. Mrs. Rendall laid aside her work, and remarked, “I am sure I don’t know why you should say that.” “Well, it is so—so deplorable.” “What is?” “I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.” “I said nothing at all.” “That’s true—that’s just it.” “What did I say? I said it was quite nice.” “Yes. You did. But don’t let’s talk any more about it.” “And you replied that I was hopeless. You must have had some reason for saying that?” “No, none at all.” “It would have been different if I had said it wasn’t nice, but I said the right thing and you were rude.” Wynne did not reply, but he breathed despairfully. “It is a great pity to be rude, Wynne, and you should try to guard against it. You will never get on if your manners are not nice. Your Great-uncle Bryan” (he was a deceased relation on her side of the family who had made a nice little income as a chemist) “attributed his success entirely to the possession of an agreeable counter-manner.” “Preserve me from that,” cried Wynne, and fled from the room. When his father returned from the City the scene in many respects was re-enacted. Mr. Rendall senior ignored his son’s classical and literary successes, and focused his attention upon the absence of any achievement on mathematical lines. “Lot of use Socrates and all these other Latin chaps are if you can’t cast up a row of figures!”