He told his small scraps of nursery news, looking in vain for the customary answering smile and merry words. He sidled up to his mother, and stroked her cheek; that did not do, so he stroked her hand; then her gown; no answering touch, no smile, no word; nothing but sorrowful eyes when he ventured to raise his own. Poor little fellow! The iron was beginning to enter; he moved a step or two away from his mother, and raised to hers eyes full of piteous doubt and pleading. He saw love, which could not reach him, and sorrow, which he was just beginning to comprehend. But his mother could bear it no longer: she got up hastily and left the room. Then the little boy, keeping close to the wall, as if even that were something to interpose between him and this new sense of desolation, edged off to the furthest corner of the room, and sinking on the floor with a sad, new quietness, sobbed out lonely sobs; Nurse had had her lesson, and although she, too, was crying for her boy, nobody went near him but Flo. A little arm was passed round his neck; a hot little cheek pressed against his curls: “Don’t cry, Guy!” two or three times, and when the sobs came all the thicker, there was nothing for it but that Flo must cry too; poor little outcasts! At last bedtime came, and his mother; but her face had still that sad, far-away look, and Guy could see she had been crying. How he longed to spring up and hug her and kiss her as he would have done yesterday. But somehow he dared not; and she never smiled nor spoke, and yet never before had Guy known how his mother loved him. She sat in her accustomed chair by the little white bed, and beckoned the little boy in his nightgown to come and say his prayers. He knelt at his mother’s knee as usual, and then she laid her hands upon him. “‘Our Father’--oh, mother, mo--o--ther, mother!” and a torrent of tears drowned the rest, and Guy was again in his mother’s arms, and she was raining kisses upon him, and crying softly with him. Next morning his father received him with open arms. “So my poor little boy had a bad day yesterday!” Guy hung his head and said nothing. “Would you like me to tell you how you may help ever having quite such another bad day?” “Oh yes, please, father; I thought I couldn’t help.” “Can you tell when the ‘Cross-man’ is coming?” Guy hesitated. “Sometimes, I think. I get all hot.” “Well, the minute you find he’s coming, even if you have begun to cry, say, ‘Please excuse me, Nurse,’ and run downstairs, and then four times round the garden as fast as you can, without stopping to take breath!” “What a good way! Shall I try it now?” “Why, the ‘Cross-man’ isn’t there now. But I’ll tell you a secret: he always goes away if you begin to do something else as hard as you can; and if you can remember to run away from him round the garden, you’ll find he won’t run after you; at the very worst, he won’t run after you more than _once_ round!”