young person wholly without respect, and was convulsed by foolish
laughter when her son soberly replied. The boy resented this attitude
--first sullenly, then fiercely.

"She acts as if there _wasn't_ really any Lily Bell," he confided to
his father, in a moment of such emotion. "I don't think that's nice or
p'lite, an' it hurts Lily Bell's feelings."

"That's bad," said the father, soberly. "We mustn't have that. I'll
speak to your mother."

He did subsequently, and to such good effect that the expression of
Mrs. Prescott's amusement was temporarily checked. But Raymond
Mortimer's confidence was temporarily blighted, and he kept his little
friend and his mother as far apart as possible. Rarely after that did
Lily Bell seek the invalid's room with the boy, though she frequently
accompanied him to his father's library when that gentleman was home
and, presumably, listened with awe to their inspiring conversation.
Mr. Prescott had begun to talk to his boy "as man to man," as he once
put it, and the phrase had so delighted the boy, now ten, that his
father freely gave him the innocent gratification of listening to it
often. Moreover, it helped in certain conversations where questions of
morals came up. As the small son of an irate father, Raymond Mortimer
might not have been much impressed by the parental theory that
watermelons must not be stolen from the patches of their only
neighbor, a crusty old bachelor. As a man of the world, however,
listening to the views of one wiser and more experienced, he was made
to see that helping one's self to the melons of another is really not
the sort of thing a decent chap can do. Lily Bell, too, held the elder
man's opinion.