Tom, I ought to have gone on the stage. I'll go yet, when you're
sent up some day. Yes, I will. You'll be where you can't stop me.

I couldn't see the Bishop, but the Dowager--oh, I'd got her. Not
so bad an old body, either, if you only take her the right way.
First, she was suspicious, and then she was scared. And then, bit
by bit, the stiffness melted out of her, her arms came up about
me, and there I was, lying all comfy, with the diamonds on her
neck boring rosettes in my cheeks, and she a-sniffling over me
and patting me and telling me not to get excited, that it was all
right, and now I was home mummy would take care of me, she would,
that she would.

She did. She got me on to a lounge, soft as--as marshmallows, and
she piled one silk pillow after another behind my back.

"Come, dear, let me help you off with your coat," she cooed,
bending over me.

"Oh, mummy, it's so cold! Can't I please keep it on?"

To let that coat off me was to give the whole thing away. My rig
underneath, though good enough for your girl, Tom, on a holiday,
wasn't just what they wear in the Square. And, d'ye know, you'll
say it's silly, but I had a conviction that with that coat I
should say good-by to the nerve I'd had since I got into the
Bishop's carriage,--and from there into society. I let her take
the hat, though, and I could see by the way she handled it that
it was all right--the thing; her kind, you know. Oh, the girl I