I do hope, Master Paul," added Mrs. Fursey, piously, "it may be a
better one. That you will make up your mind to--"

But Mrs. Fursey's well-meant exhortations, whatever they may have
been, fell upon deaf ears. Here was I face to face with yet another
problem. This life into which I had fallen: it was understandable!
One went away, leaving the pleasant places that one knew, never to
return to them. One left one's labour and one's play to enter upon a
new existence in a strange land. One parted from the friends one had
always known, one saw them never again. Life was indeed a strange
thing; and, would a body comprehend it, then must a body sit staring
into the fire, thinking very hard, unheedful of all idle chatter.

That night, when my mother came to kiss me good-night, I turned my
face to the wall and pretended to be asleep, for children as well as
grown-ups have their foolish moods; but when I felt the soft curls
brush my cheek, my pride gave way, and clasping my arms about her
neck, and drawing her face still closer down to mine; I voiced the
question that all the evening had been knocking at my heart:

"I suppose you couldn't send me back now, could you? You see, you've
had me so long."

"Send you back?"

"Yes. I'd be too big for the stork to carry now, wouldn't I?"

My mother knelt down beside the bed so that her face and mine were on
a level, and looking into her eyes, the fear that had been haunting me
fell from me.