‘That is a most unkind speech,’ says Crosby at last. ‘After all, I don’t feel as grateful now as I did a minute ago. I came here to-day to thank you for looking so kindly after my property, and you meet me with an accusation that absolutely strikes me dumb.’ At this Susan cannot refrain from bitter jest. ‘True,’ says she scornfully; ‘one can see how silent you are.’ Mr. Crosby regards her with apparent awe, tempered with grief. ‘If you persist in your present course,’ says he, ‘I shall commit suicide. There will be nothing else left for me to do.’ ‘In the meantime,’ says Susan, with astonishing spirit, ‘you had better come into the garden. They are expecting you.’ Not so very much, after all. Betty, Carew, and Dom Fitzgerald are engaged in a lively discussion on Miss Barry’s wild attack on the unoffending Sarah in church this morning, and, in the delights of it, have almost forgotten Mr. Crosby. The children are playing about on the tennis-ground below, and Crosby’s eyes fall on Bonnie, as with great difficulty, and with the help of a stick, he tries to follow little Tom. Jacky, in the distance, is stretched on his stomach reading. ‘Those are your brothers?’ asks Crosby, looking more deliberately at Bonnie, whose charming little face, though pale and emaciated, attracts him. ‘Yes, I have four brothers and one sister.’ ‘Five brothers, I thought.’ ‘Oh no; Dominick Fitzgerald is our cousin. He lives with us nearly altogether, and father is coaching him for the Indian Civil.’ ‘Oh, I see. That little brother’—gently indicating Bonnie—‘does not look very strong.’ ‘No, he had rheumatic fever, and he has not been’—correcting herself hastily, as though it is impossible to her to say the more terrible word—‘very strong since.’ ‘What a beautiful face!’ says Crosby involuntarily. And, indeed, the loveliest flower of all this handsome Barry family is the little suffering cripple child. Susan is conscious for a moment of a choking in her throat. Oh, her little lovely darling brother! To hear him praised is a great joy to her, but with the joy follows pain unutterable. If only she had looked more closely after him! And poor, poor mamma, who had told her to be a mother to him! Then, all at once, she remembers the cherries, and how he had enjoyed them, and a queer passion of feeling, arising first of all from the fact that Crosby had admired the child, makes her turn to him.