until it seemed even harder than before, and the old days of school and games were like dreams of another and a happier world. His father was at his office all day, and his mother, absorbed in her social life, had little time to give to her son; and both of them regarded the boy as well cared for if he were only supplied with all sorts of dainties, and had the most comfortable sofa and chair given up to him.
Sometimes Bess found the child so disconsolate that she knew not how to comfort him; sometimes he was moody, and slow to respond to her efforts to be entertaining, but before she left him, her womanly tact had smoothed away the frown, and forced him to laugh in spite of himself. And in the worst of his moods he was never cross to her, but always seemed grateful to her for her coming.
“If you only needn’t go home at all!” he said to her one day. “It’s lots more fun when you are here, Miss Bess. The rest of the time I just lie here and think till I get cross, and everything seems awful.”
“Why do you ‘just lie here and think,’ then?” asked Bess, feeling that here was a
