his plate of soup hungrily as it travelled toward him. "If my eyes won't
let me be captain of a football team, I'm going to become the champion
runner in America. I bet I can, if I try."

"I shouldn't wonder, dear. It's good for you, too. I never saw you look
better."

He was a tall, thin boy, with a muscular figure, and thick brown hair,
which was always rumpled. Through his ugly spectacles his eyes showed
large, dark, and as beautifully soft as a girl's. His mind was
remarkably keen and active, and there was in his carriage something of
Gabriella's capable and commanding air, as if, like her, he embodied
those qualities which compel acknowledgment. Though she had never
admitted it even to herself, he was her favourite child.

When dinner was over she had the children to herself--to the gracious,
unhurried self she gave them--until ten o'clock. Then their books were
put away, and after she had kissed them good-night, and tucked the
covers about them, she came back to the living-room, and sat down to her
sewing with Miss Polly. The ease and cheerfulness dropped from her at
the approach of midnight, and while the two women bent over their
needles they talked of their anxieties, and planned innumerable and
intricate ways of economy.

"Fanny's school costs so much, and, of course, she must have clothes.
All the other girls dress so expensively."

"You spend three times as much on her as you do on Archibald."

"I know," her voice melted to the mother note, "but Archibald is