against the intense blue sky of the East in the too splendid, scorching
sunshine that no one who has not seen it can picture to himself; of
rides--weary endless rides--night after night through the desert; or
voyages of months and months together across the pathless ocean. They
would sit, the little brother and sister, staring up at her with their
great solemn blue eyes, as if they would never tire of listening--how
wonderfully wise Grandpapa and Grandmamma must be!--"Surely," said
little Pamela one day with a great sigh, "surely Grandmamma must know
_everyfing_;" while Duke's breast swelled with the thought that he too,
like his father and grandfather before him, would journey some day to
those distant lands, there, if need were, like them "to fight for the
king." For there were times at which "bruvver" was quite determined to
be a soldier, though at others--the afternoon, for instance, when the
young bull poked his head through the hedge and shook it at him and
Pamela, and Duke's toy-sword had unfortunately been left at home in the
nursery--he did not feel quite so sure about it!

But on this particular morning the little pair were less interested and
talkative than usual. They sat so quiet while Grandmamma made her
arrangements that her attention was aroused.

"You are very silent little mice, this morning," she said. "Is it
because poor Nurse is ill that you seem in such low spirits?"

Duke and Pamela looked at each other. It would have been so easy to say
"yes," and Grandmamma would have thought them so kind-hearted and
sympathising! Once one has swerved a little bit from the straight exact
road and begun to go down-hill even in the least, it is so tempting to
go on a little farther--so much less difficult than to stop short, or,
still more, to try to go back again. But these children were so unused