“It’s the Deportment—­since September.  You said when Miss Skinner sent that last note home about me that if I could get a hundred in Deportment for every month up to Christmas you’d be willing to pay me five dollars.  You can see there for yourself, father, the three one hundreds—­no, not that line—­that’s only fifty-five for spelling; nobody ever knows their spelling!  Here is the place to look—­in the Deportment column.  I’ve tried awful hard to be good, father, to surprise you.”

“The way that child has tried!” burst forth Clytie, her dark eyes drowned in sparkles.  “And they’re so unfair at school—­giving you a mark if you squeak your chair, or speak, or look at anybody; as if any child could be expected to sit like a stone all the time!  I’m sure I love to hear children laughing—­and you know yourself how hard it is for George to be quiet!  We had a little talk about it together, he and I; and now you see!  It’s been such work keeping his card from you each month when you asked for it.  One day he thought he had a bad mark and he couldn’t eat any dinner—­you thought he was ill; but he went to Miss Skinner the next day and she took it off because he had been trying so hard to be good.  Joe, why don’t you speak?”

“George, I’m proud of you!” said Langshaw simply.  There was a slight huskiness in his voice; the round face and guileless blue eyes of his little boy, who had tried “awful hard to be good,” seemed to have acquired a new dignity.  The father saw in him the grown-up son who could be depended upon to look after his mother if need were.  Langshaw held out his hand as man to man; the two pairs of eyes met squarely.  “Nothing you could have done would have pleased me more than this, George.  I value it more than any Christmas present I could have.”

“Mother said you’d like it,” said the beaming George, ducking his head suddenly and kicking out his legs from behind.

“And you’ll pay the five dollars?” supplemented Clytie anxiously.

“Surely!” said Langshaw.  The glances of the parents met in one of the highest pleasures that life affords:  the approval together of the good action of their dear child.  “George can go out and get this ten-dollar bill changed.”

“If you can’t spare it, father—­” suggested the boy with some new sense of manliness, hanging back.

“I’m glad to be able to spare it,” said the father soberly.  “It’s a good deal of money,” he added.  “I suppose, of course, you’ll put it in the bank, George?”

“Now you mustn’t ask what he’s going to do with it,” said Clytie.

“Oh, isn’t it much!” cried little Mary.

“Dear me, there’s the doorbell,” said Clytie.  “Who can it be at this hour?  Run, George, and see!”

“It’s a letter for you, mother,” announced George, reappearing.  “There’s a man in the hall, waiting for an answer.”

“It looks like a bill,” said Clytie nervously, tearing open the envelope; “but I don’t owe any bill.  Why, it’s two and a quarter, from the tailor, for fixing over my old suit last fall!  I’m positive I paid it weeks ago.  There’s some mistake.”