Hurrah for Peter Perry!

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO., LTD.
CHAP.
WE'RE not to go to the seaside? Oh, Mother, why not?
Because, dear, we can't afford it. I'm very, very sorry, but you must try to enjoy your holidays at home; and, please, Tom, don't let your father guess that you greatly mind—of course, it's only natural that you should be disappointed.
The scene was the comfortable though decidedly shabby sitting-room at No. 3 Ladysmith Terrace, a row of new houses on the outskirts of Chilaton, a large provincial town; and the speakers were Mrs. Burford, a pretty, rather delicate-looking woman of thirty, and her ten-year-old son, Tom, whose usually bright face was now wearing an expression of mingled amazement and dismay. It was a pleasant afternoon at the close of July, and on the previous day the school, which Tom attended as a day-scholar, had broken up for the long holiday. Always, hitherto, Mr. Burford, who was a clerk in a bank in Chilaton, had taken his holiday in August, and gone with his family to the seaside; but Mrs. Burford had just told Tom that that programme could not be carried out this year.
You see, she continued, we have had extra expenses to cope with— Nellie's illness, for instance, and—
Dr. Brewer said that a change of air would set Nellie up quicker than anything! Tom broke in, eagerly; you haven't forgotten that, Mother?
Mrs. Burford shook her head, and her lips quivered. There was a minute's silence, then she said, quietly: If it was possible, we should carry out Dr. Brewer's prescription, Tom, but it is not. We must live within our income, and we could not do that if we took a holiday under existing circumstances. I hope, next year, if your father should get a rise—
Tom, who was standing by the open window, gazing into the small patch of flower garden which divided the house from the road, turned sharply and looked at his mother as her voice altered and stopped. Mrs. Burford was seated in a low chair, a stocking, which she had been darning, drawn over her left hand, but she had ceased working, for she could not see on account of the tears which had suddenly filled her eyes. The boy's heart swelled with sympathy for her as he saw the sad feelings she was trying to keep down. Oh, Mother, he cried, don't look like that! I daresay Nellie will get quite well without going away! You know she is much better than she was a month ago! Why, I heard you say, yesterday, that you really thought she was a little fatter! And she's quite lost her cough!