class="narrative">“Oh, I am sorry,” I said. “Mother, Jack has come home with a bad headache.”

My mother stepped into the hall.

“You are looking very ill indeed,” she exclaimed.

Jack growled in that peculiarly ungracious way which always drove me wild when it was addressed to our mother.

“I am not ill,” he said. “What a fuss women make! I have just got a beastly headache.”

“Come into the drawing-room, and have a cup of tea, my dear boy.”

“I could not sit up, thank you, mother. I’ll go to my room, and see what a stretch on the bed and a nap will do for me. If Rosamund likes to be good-natured, she can bring me up some tea in half an hour.”

I did not particularly wish to be good-natured; nevertheless, at the time specified I took the tea to Jack. He sat up when I entered the room; there were feverish spots on his cheeks.

“Bother that tea!” he exclaimed. “Put it down, and shut the door, Rosamund. Now come over, and sit near me. If I don’t tell you what is the matter, I shall go mad.”