ing to read, and to allow himself the full measure of the traditional forty winks (though why forty more than fifty or a hundred, I for one have never been able to discover) before he opened them again. Fenella, for her part, would remain silent or speak, just as the spirit moved her. Sometimes she would read a sentence out loud from her book; an old copy of "Sartor Resartus" as it happened, taken from the hotel library, and ask him if he could make it clear for her. At other times she would take no notice of his presence, but would occupy herself entirely with Ronny. Jacynth loved to watch her at these moments from behind his paper, and seek fresh proofs of the infinite variety of her charm. He did not wonder that the little boy adored his mother. She was his playmate and companion, as well as his nurse and guardian. The stories she told him, when he was tired of playing at spilikins, with transparent little fingers that trembled from weakness, were delightful. There was always some point in them which provoked a duet of laughter from both together, that Jacynth found it good to listen to. There were times, too, when the conversation would become general, that is to say, when Ronny would be the chief speaker, and when he would tell, in his quavering little voice, of the wonderful and terrible things he had seen in the New York slums. Jacynth, moved with pity for the white terror portrayed
