J. J. Bell

“ Perhaps something had happened to Billy! At the thought her eyes became clear, her relaxed muscles stiffened. She must go at once to the lodge, and—
She turned quickly. The door in the opposite wall had opened and closed, and her husband was coming down the garden. She leaned back against the gate. Her husband had not entered her garden for nearly two years—not since that September day when he and she and another had played together on the center plot, then grass. For while women cling to sorrowful associations men seek to avoid them. ”

“ He was not much disturbed when he realized that he did not know in what direction the lodge lay. He decided to follow the path. A path always led one somewhere, and this path was particularly attractive. It reminded him of a path in one of his pictures called “The Way to Fairyland.” Billy could scarcely believe that he, being a mortal (he wished he had remembered to ask mother what a mortal was exactly) , could ever get there. ”

“ So it had been straying for about an hour, though, to be sure, he would have told you that “hours and hours” had passed since the great gates had been opened to let out a splendid motor-car containing a smart chauffeur and a rather cross-looking gentleman who stared at him for an instant and then returned to reading a newspaper. Immediately the car went through, the gates had been closed by the lodge-keeper, who was Billy's uncle, and whom Billy had not yet got to know very well, except as a terribly tall man who seemed to want to be kind, but didn't exactly know how to go about it. ”

“ Billy nodded, and squeezed the strong arm. He would have liked to explain that he never mentioned his rides to the beautiful lady.
Sir Henry nodded also. “I respect your reasons, whatever they may be, for secrecy, old man.” He knew the wife of his lodge-keeper to be a woman of fixed ideas; doubtless she had duties for the boy to perform on certain days. ”

“ So happy days began for Billy. He did not see the beautiful lady every morning, but she always let him know in advance when she would not be in the garden, so that he should never arrive at the gate and meet disappointment. In fine weather they played in the garden. At first she did not play particularly well; would stop in the middle of a game and send Billy to the far end of the garden to find a certain kind of flower ”

“ But he did wish she would allow him to love her. He had the same feeling about his uncle, but could not think of any way of “helping” him. Still he would gladly have walked up the avenue with his uncle—who had work in the hothouses and gardens—and met him coming home, and taken his hand, if his uncle had so desired. But his uncle—no, perhaps it was his aunt—had said that Sir Henry and her Ladyship would not like to have a strange little boy about the grounds, and that Billy must always be careful to stay near the lodge. ”

“ Go on, Harry.”
“Well, the fact is, there isn't much accommodation and convenience and so on at the lodge for such a case, and I wondered if we couldn't have him removed to—”
“Not the hospital, Harry, not the hospital.”
“No, dear, to the house. Would you mind? Er—could you stand it? He's a nice little chap. I've taken him in the car once or twice—perhaps oftener—and he's—er—all right. His parents are dead. His mother was a sister of Martin's, who might have been a great singer, and—er—his father, I've learned, was born a gentleman, though— But do you think we could manage it, Lydia?” ”

“ Presently he let it slip from his knee; it fell down the steps upon the gravel. He descended after it, and was about to pick it up when the painful lump came into his throat. For a moment, his hand to his mouth, he looked at the open door. Then he turned and ran up the avenue. ”

“ About noon they stopped at a farm, where Billy got a glass of milk, and the farmer's wife called him “her bonnie boy” and hugged him when he offered to kiss her. It is only the little boys who get plenty of kisses who really object to them. ”

“ A third-rate singer and a fourth-rate fiddler, they had not, perhaps, been very exemplary people, but at least they had loved their little boy devotedly and shielded him from much that was deplorable. They had died of enteric fever within a week of each other, and after several months of residence with various relatives Billy had been received by his uncle and aunt at the lodge, not without many misgivings on the part of the middle-aged, childless couple. ”