By this time Miss Latimer had taken her departure, and Lucy and her little laddie were alone. There was something for her to do from morning till night. She would not even call in the service of the charwoman, for she remembered that its results had not been too satisfactory even upon the perfect order and straightforwardness that Pollie had left behind her. Mrs. Challoner soon found that Jessie Morison’s month of service had not been quite so satisfactory as it had seemed. Little things had gone astray, little household matters, for which she had given Jessie money, were left unpaid—the whole amount perhaps not rising above three or four shillings. Still, all this determined Lucy to keep her own hand on the household helm for the moment. She could postpone the duties of wardrobe and store closets which she had assigned to herself for this last week of leisure. She would be general servant, nurse, and housemistress for once before she turned breadwinner! The weather was cold, but it was bright and cheerful, and Lucy got real enjoyment out of her mornings in the genial warmth of the kitchen, with Hugh eagerly watching and proudly helping in those homely labours which delight all children. Do the banquets of after-life ever furnish such delicious dainties as that scrap of paste, extra from the pie-crust, which mother or elder sister sweetens, and rolls out, and cuts patterns upon, and pops into the oven, all before one’s eyes, and which we wait to see taken out crisp and brown? Hugh was a happy little boy in those days. Had not papa’s letter enclosed a scrap of paper covered with o’s, and inscribed, “All for Hughie himself,” and didn’t Hugh know that these meant kisses? Then there was nothing to hinder him from trotting after mamma all day long, and she often sent him upstairs or downstairs to fetch her a brush or a duster. She even let him help her make a bed. She told him he was “a useful little boy,” and that praise came to his ears with a pleasing novelty, which “a sweet darling” or “a precious dear” had lost. She let him watch her cleaning his little boots, she let him try to do it himself. That effectually convinced him how naughty it is to dip one’s foot in mud just for the fun of doing it. And while these delights went on the mother and child talked about the time when Hugh would be a man, perhaps a great explorer, alone in strange countries, and how well it would be for him to know how to do things for himself. “Or I’ll do them for you when you’re very, very, very old, mamma,” he had said, and Lucy had been half-staggered and half-amused when he had next asked whether it would not be fully time for him to begin next year! “No, I don’t think I shall want much done for me quite so soon,” she had cheerfully replied; “but you may be able to do something for yourself. I think boys and all men who are not very busy and tired out with doing other things, ought to clean their own boots.”