smothered me. Mick wasn't there, and what do you think? When the men came in, I heard a voice that wasn't a bit like a black man's voice. I'd often heard the black men talking, you know. There was a black butler where I was staying before in New York, but this voice wasn't a bit like that; and so I just peeped, like this, from under the clothes; and, oh, mummy, there was Mr. Jacynth and a lot of policemen standing inside the room, and I gave a great shriek—didn't I, Mr. Jacynth? and I kicked away the dress, and I rushed right to where Mr. Jacynth was standing, and I held to his legs—I did; and he took me right up and kissed me. I put my arms round his neck, and I cried and sobbed fit to break my heart; and what do you think, mummy? [Ronny's voice conveyed unnumbered notes of emphatic exclamation.] Mr. Jacynth was crying, too; he was; I seed him." He might have added "as you are crying now, mother," for as the climax of the narrative was reached, Fenella broke down completely, and instinctively held out her hand to the savior of her little boy. Jacynth could not refrain from pressing his lips to it, and the action conveyed a thousand times more than the courtly old custom is wont to convey under ordinary circumstances. Ronny, overcome by the recollections of the scene he had conjured up, flung his arms round his mother's neck and then held up his face to Jacynth to be
