"Bring him in!" said an exultant voice; "and stand back, please, and let
his mother get at him."

The laughing group fell back, and George, blinking, radiant, and abashed,
found himself in the arms of an exceedingly sprightly and youthful dame,
with pale, frizzled hair, and the figure of seventeen.

"Oh, you dear, great, foolish thing!" said the lady, with the voice and
the fervour, moreover, of seventeen. "So you've got in--you've done it!
Well, I should never have spoken to you again if you hadn't! And I
suppose you'd have minded that a little--from your own mother. Goodness!
how cold he is!"

And she flew at him with little pecking kisses, retreating every now and
again to look at him, and then closing upon him again in ecstasy, till
George, at the end of his patience, held her off with a strong arm.

"Now, mother, that's enough. Have the others been home long?" he
asked, addressing a smiling young man in knickerbockers who, with his
hands in his pockets, was standing beside the hero of the occasion
surveying the scene.

"Oh! about half an hour. They reported you'd have some difficulty
in getting out of the clutches of the crowd. We hardly expected
you so soon."

"How's Miss Sewell's headache? Does she know?"

The expression of the young man's eye, which was bent on Tressady,