“Do you mean yourself, Mar? Why should it be thought of, that a young creature is going to die? We must all die sometime. What you have to do is to live, and to grow up a very important man, with a great deal to do in the world.” “Aunt Letitia does not think I shall ever do that. But she does not want anything to happen to me in her house. Don’t you know what that means? But don’t think I care,” said the boy with a pale smile. “I’ve thought it all over, and I believe in Christianity and I don’t mind dying a bit. I hate being ill, and I hate being kept in like this and made different from the rest; but why should one mind dying? One will get into a better place; one will be saved from all possibility of going to the bad. I don’t see why there should be any fuss about it, especially as there is nobody in particular to care---- Yes, I know there’s you; but you see so little of me. And the girls would be very sorry. Letty, I shouldn’t wonder if Letty---- But that’s a poor sort of talk to amuse you with.” “Dear Mar, you break my heart.” “Why,” said the boy, “I should think you would be glad to know that whatever happens I don’t mind. But Aunt Letitia,” he said with a laugh, “would be in a dreadful state of mind if anything should happen--in her house.” CHAPTER XXXIII. The next morning rose in a blaze of sunshine as though everything in heaven and earth conjoined to make Duke’s day of rejoicing brilliant and happy. It was the day of all others for a fête out of doors, and the hero of the occasion greatly regretted the marquee in which the dinner was to take place, and where, no doubt, the heat would be suffocating. That, and the still more terrible fact that he would have to make a speech, were the only clouds upon Duke’s firmament. They kept him in a subdued state of felicity during the morning, in the course of which he retired often into private corners both indoors and out of doors to study a small manuscript which had been concocted in the schoolroom with the help of Letty and Mar, and therefore was the result of the joint youthful genius of the house. Letitia had on several occasions indicated to her son what he ought to say, and would have written his speech for him with more or less success, as she was in the habit of doing for John. But Duke had not relished his mother’s aid. He had told her with great dignity that there was some things which a man ought to do for himself, and that his speech at his birthday dinner was certainly one of them--a general proposition which could not be opposed in the abstract, and to which the fear of raising a still stronger opposition prevented Letitia from replying that in her son’s special circumstances a birthday speech was a very difficult business, and required most wary walking. Nothing could be more true, or more impossible to say to a hot-headed boy, who was utterly unconscious of the schemes and hopes for his aggrandisement which filled his mother’s brain. And had she suggested to