"I'm not coming," he said, "till I choose."

"You wicked boy!" she cried, her temper rising with the evening
chills, her desire for a cup of hot tea, and an aching longing for a
comfortable chair. "When everyone's been so good to you to-day and
the things you've been given and all--why, it's a wicked shame."

The Jampot, who was a woman happily without imagination, saw a
naughty small boy spoiled and needing the slipper.

A rook, taking a last look at the world before retiring to rest,
watching from his leafless bough, saw a mortal spirit defying the
universe, and sympathised with it.

"I shall tell your mother," said the Jampot. "Now come, Master
Jeremy, be a good boy."

"Oh, don't bother, Nurse," he answered impatiently. "You're such a
fuss."

She realised in that moment that he was suddenly beyond her power,
that he would never be within it again. She had nursed him for eight
years, she had loved him in her own way; she, dull perhaps in the
ways of the world, but wise in the ways of nurses, ways that are
built up of surrender and surrender, gave him, then and there, to
the larger life. . .

"You may behave as you like, Master Jeremy," she said. "It won't be
for long that I'll have the dealing with you, praise be. You'll be