The children. They carried their confidences to Lavvy, and Florrie was jealous. Women were always jealous, and never logical. If, instead of being cattish, she had studied the reason why Grace and Nina and Hal and Ursula and Bunny and Lottie and William preferred Aunt Lavvy, except for the perfunctory “of course Mother comes first” ... Florrie was so brusque and boisterous with them--laughed at their bruises and snubbed their sorrows; furthering her ridiculously overdone theory of “not putting up with any nonsense.” Had Florrie been tenderer---- Then Ronald might have been alive still. And Hal would probably not have disgraced them all by keeping money which did not belong to him. Queer--how this stormy business with Hal had tossed up the forgotten jetsam of the years! How long was it since he had grieved for Ronald? The child was only three when he had died of the measles.... “Better let ’em all have it together, and get it over” ... that was Florrie. And Ronald had got it over--promptly. But if Florrie had only taken a decent mother’s care of the little chap.... And Mr. Maxwell said so, quite suddenly, having reached this point in his reflections without giving his wife any clue as to how he got there. She had hoped he was all the while dreaming back to their courtship. Perhaps he might break out with: “By George, Flo, d’you remember that drive home from Richmond in the hansom, after the Wilkinsons’ ball?” But ... Ronald? She stared, stupefied. And then she gulped: “You might as well say straight out I’m a murderess.” “I didn’t say that, but it doesn’t do to be too slapdash with babies. Tender at the two ends, tough in the middle, is most persons’ lives!” “I’ve brought up seven healthy ones for you. Or perhaps _Lavvy_ brought them up?” Her uncontrollable grievance had possessed her again, and she linked it on to his, with: “I suppose--if Lavvy had been Ronald’s mother----” “He might not have,” Tom Maxwell answered her. And left the room. Downstairs in the hall, on the salver, a letter awaited him, just come by the seven o’clock post. And next to the letter stood Bunny: “It’s for you, dad.” “Ah--thank you, my boy!” With eyes more than usually bright and dark, Bunny watched him read it. He had known from the postmark and uncertain handwriting, “Mr. Maxwell” instead of “T. Maxwell, Esq.,” that it was from the tuck-shop to which he owed fifteen bob. Hal’s note, written after lunch, and containing a postal order for that sum, was too late to save him from exposure. But Bunny was glad of it. His imagination had given birth to a scheme in bold colourings and with some surprising dramatic effects, directly he had spotted that letter on the salver. “I thought I’d forbidden you to owe to the tradesmen round your school, Bunny.” But it would have been “Bernard,” and a much sterner tone, if Hal’s crime had not dwindled a mere scrape to insignificance.