Big boys like himself did not usually play with such little girls. But something had drawn him to her at their first moment of encounter. She wasn’t like any other little girls. He felt it all the time and that was part of the thing which drew him. He was not, of course, aware that the male thrill at being regarded as one who is a god had its power over the emotions. She wasn’t making silly fun and pretending. She really didn’t know—because she was different. “It’s liking very much. It’s more,” he explained. “My mother loves _me_. I—I _love_ you!” stoutly. “Yes, I _love_ you. That’s why I kissed you when you cried.” She was so uplifted, so overwhelmed with adoring gratitude that as she knelt on the grass she worshipped him. “I love _you_,” she answered him. “I _love_ you—_love_ you!” And she looked at him with such actual prayerfulness that he caught at her and, with manly promptness, kissed her again—this being mere Nature. Because he was eight years old and she was six her tears flashed away and they both laughed joyously as they sat down on the grass again to talk it over. He told her all the pleasant things he knew about Mothers. The world was full of them it seemed—full. You belong to them from the time you were a baby. He had not known many personally because he had always lived at Braemarnie, which was in the country in Scotland. There were no houses near his home. You had to drive miles and miles before you came to a house or a castle. He had not seen much of other children except a few who lived at the Manse and belonged to the minister. Children had fathers as well as mothers. Fathers did not love you or take care of you quite as much as Mothers—because they were men. But they loved you too. His own father had died when he was a baby. His mother loved him as much as he loved her. She was beautiful but—it seemed to reveal itself—not like the Lady Downstairs. She did not laugh very much, though she laughed when they played together. He was too big now to sit on her knee, but squeezed into the big chair beside her when she read or told him stories. He always did what his mother told him. She knew everything in the world and so knew what he ought to do. Even when he was a big man he should do what his mother told him.