father, "a most remarkable child."

It could not truthfully be said that during these weeks he forgot his
friend altogether. There were still the dark hours at night when he
longed for him, and once or twice he had cried aloud for him. But slowly
that slipped away. He did not look often now at the fountain.

There were times when his friend was almost there. One evening, kneeling
on the floor before the fire, arranging shining soldiers in a row, he
was aware of something that made him sharply pause and raise his head.
He was, for the moment, alone in the room that was glowing and quivering
now in the firelight. The faint stir and crackle of the fire, the rich
flaming colour that rose and fell against the white ceiling might have
been enough to make him wonder. But there was also the scent of a clump
of blue hyacinths standing in shadow by the darkened window, and this
scent caught him, even as the fountain had caught him, caught him with
the stillness, the leaping fire, the twisted sense of romantic
splendours that came, like some magician's smoke and flame, up to his
very heart and brain. He did not turn his head, but behind him he was
sure, there on the golden-brown rug, his friend was standing, watching
him with his smiling eyes, his dark beard; he would be ready, at the
least movement, to catch him up and hold him. Swiftly, Ernest Henry
turned. There was no one there.

But those moments were few now; real people were intervening. He had no
mother, and this was doubtless the reason why his nurse darkly addressed
him as "Poor Lamb" on many occasions; but he was, of course, at present
unaware of his misfortune. He _had_ an aunt, and of this lady he was
aware only too vividly. She was long and thin and black, and he would
not have disliked her so cordially, perhaps, had he not from the very