"This," answered Bob, drawing from his pocket a triangle design worked in silks within which a unicorn ramped, a Latin motto pressing its feet. "Oh, Bob, your colours! How splendid! I am glad--and First Eleven too! Won't your father be proud of you?" "Don't mention it to him, please," said the boy, colouring. "He thinks me such a rotter at work, and he may be vexed--and think I waste my time at games----" A bright smile lit Margaret's face as she replied. "You have no eyes, old boy, or you wouldn't say that. Didn't you ever notice your father reading the cricket news in the summer? Don't make any mistake, I'm nearly sure he's a sportsman, and don't you doubt for a moment but he'll appreciate your success. A boy doesn't get his first 'eleven' colours without some trouble, perseverance, and grit. Just show this to Mr. Medhurst, and see if I am not right?" "Shall I go and tell him about it?" said Ellice, springing to her feet. "No--no, child, it's your brother's news; let him have that pleasure." At that moment there was a tread of footsteps outside the room, and then a knock, followed by the opening of the door. "May I come in, Miss Woodford?" said Mr. Medhurst, as he entered. "You sound lively in here." "Oh, yes--daddy, come--Bob's got----" "Hush!" interposed Margaret, shaking her head at the eager child, who immediately stopped short in her sentence with, "Oh, I am not to tell." "Bob's got, what?" asked Mr. Medhurst, turning to his son, with interested face, from which the thunder-clouds of old days were absent. Bob coloured furiously, then rather shyly drew out his trophy. "Only this, father," he said awkwardly, placing it in Mr. Medhurst's outstretched hand. "What--colours! Yours? First Eleven? Well done, Bob! I _am_ pleased! I congratulate you; it's something worth having--reminds me, too, of old days," he finished, with a laugh. "Why, did you play cricket, daddy?" asked Ellice. "Well, little lady, I suppose I did; was School Captain one season; if I remember rightly, just missed my blue at the 'Varsity by a bit of bad luck." "_Father!_" exclaimed Bob, his eyes shining, "do tell us about it?" The two, father and son, in many ways so much alike, forgot all their old reticence towards each other, and were soon deep in the stories of old triumphs of the field, henceforth bound together by a great sympathetic bond never to be broken. Margaret sat and listened with a double interest, watching life-barriers broken down, barriers which had so nearly wrecked the happiness of a home. CHAPTER X FIRE Margaret seemed to have found her niche in the little parish of Wychcliff, where she had come as a stranger in the first days of her great sorrow. Oaklands had now gradually become a second home. The dread secret she shared with her employers was jealously guarded, but often in the solitude of her room it would stare her in the face, and bring a cloud of depression over an otherwise happy day.