"But it's so heavy."

"Do put it on, dear."

He was not very often irritable or rude, but he answered, "Oh, I
shan't catch cold. I do wish you wouldn't keep on bothering."
He did not catch cold, but while he was out his mother died. She
only survived her husband eleven days, a coincidence which was
recorded on their tombstone.

Such, in substance, was the story which Rickie told his friends
as they stood together in the shelter of the dell. The green bank
at the entrance hid the road and the world, and now, as in
spring, they could see nothing but snow-white ramparts and the
evergreen foliage of the firs. Only from time to time would a
beech leaf flutter in from the woods above, to comment on the
waning year, and the warmth and radiance of the sun would vanish
behind a passing cloud.

About the greatcoat he did not tell them, for he could not have
spoken of it without tears.



III

Mr. Ansell, a provincial draper of moderate prosperity, ought by
rights to have been classed not with the cow, but with those
phenomena that are not really there. But his son, with pardonable