She had been Lady Cathcart's caretaker for a year and a half, and had given every satisfaction. When the old lady came up to London Mrs. Slater went down to Essex and defended the country place from suffragettes and burglars. "I shouldn't care for it," said a lady friend, "all alone in the country with no cheerful noises nor human beings." "Doesn't frighten me, I give you my word, Mrs. East," said Mrs. Slater; "not that I don't prefer the town, mind you." It was, on the whole, a pleasant life, that carried with it a certain dignity. Nobody who had seen old Lady Cathcart drive in her open carriage, with her black bonnet, her coachman, and her fine, straight back, could deny that she was one of Our Oldest and Best--none of your mushroom families come from Lord knows where--it was a position of trust, and as such Mrs. Slater considered it. For the rest she loved her son Henry with more than a mother's love; he was as unlike his poor father, bless him, as any child could be. Henry, although you would never think it to look at him, was not quite like other children; he had been, from his birth, a "little queer, bless his heart," and Mrs. Slater attributed this to the fact that three weeks before the boy's birth, Horny Slater, Senior, had, in a fine frenzy of inebriation, hit her over the head with a chair. "Dead drunk, 'e was, and never a thought to the child coming, ''Enery,' I said to him, 'it's the child you're hitting as well as me'; but 'e was too far gone, poor soul, to take a thought." Henry was a fine, robust child, with rosy cheeks and a sturdy, thick-set body. He had large blue eyes and a happy, pleasant smile, but, although he was six years of age, he could hardly talk at all, and liked to spend the days twirling pieces of string round and round or looking into the fire. His eyes were unlike the eyes of other children, and in their blue depths there lurked strange apprehensions, strange anticipations, strange remembrances. He had never, from the day of his birth, been known to cry. When he was frightened or distressed the colour would pass slowly from his cheeks, and strange little gasping breaths would come from him; his body would stiffen and his hands clench. If he was angry the colour in his face would darken and his eyes half close, and it was then that he did, indeed, seem in the possession of some disastrous thraldom--but he was angry very seldom, and only with certain people; for the most part he was a happy child, "as quiet as a mouse." He was unusual, too, in that he was a very cleanly child, and loved to be washed, and took the greatest care of his clothes. He was very affectionate, fond of almost every one, and passionately devoted to his mother.