Papa angry, was a novel spectacle, at which Maurice looked as innocently and steadily as ever, so completely without fear or contrition, that he provoked a stern, ‘Do you hear me, sir?’ and another shake.  Maurice flushed, and his chest heaved, though he did not sob, and his father, uncomfortable at such sharp dealing with so young a child, set him aside, with the words, ’There now, recollect what I have told you!’ and walked to the window, where he stood silent for some seconds, while the boy stood with rounded shoulders, perplexed eye, and finger on his pouting lip, and Mr. Ferrars, newspaper in hand, watched him under his eyelids, and speculated what would be the best sort of mediation, or whether the young gentleman yet deserved it.  He knew that his own Willie would have been a mere quaking, sobbing mass of terror, under such a shake, and he would like to have been sure whether that sturdy silence were obstinacy or fortitude.

The sound of the door-bell made Mr. Kendal turn round, and laying his hand on the little fellow’s fair head, he said, ’There, Maurice, we’ll say no more about it if you will be a good boy.  Run away now, but don’t go into your mamma’s room.’

Maurice looked up, tossed his curls out of his eyes, shook himself, felt the place on his arm where the grip of the hand had been, and galloped off like the young colt that he was.

Albinia awoke, refreshed, though still shaken and feeble, and surprised to find that dinner was going on downstairs.  Her own meal presently put such new force into her, that she felt able to speak Maurice’s name without bursting into tears, and longing to see both her little ones beside her, she told the nurse to fetch the boy, but received for answer, ‘No, Master Maurice said he would not come,’ and the manner conveyed that it had been defiantly said.  Master Maurice was no favourite in the nursery, and he was still less so, when his mamma, disregarding all mandates, set out to seek him.  Already she heard from the stairs the wrangling with Susan that accompanied all his toilettes, and she found him the picture of firm, solid fairness, in his little robe de nuit, growling through the combing of his tangled locks.  Though ordinarily scornful of caresses, he sprang to her and hugged her, as she sat down on a low chair, and he knelt in her lap, whispering with his head on her shoulder, and his arms round her neck, ‘Mamma, were you dead?’

‘No, Maurice,’ she answered with something of a sob, ’or I should not have my dear, dear little boy throttling me now!  But why would you not come down to me?’

‘Papa said I must not.’

Oh, that was quite right, my boy;’ and though she unclasped the tight arms, she drew him nestling into her bosom.  ’Oh, Maurice, it has been a terrible day!  Does my little boy know how good the great God has been to him, and how near he was never seeing mamma nor his little sister again.’