"'Money lost—little lost.'"
"It's easy to say that."
"'Honour lost—much lost.'"
"I call it everything."
"No, mother, wait! 'Pluck lost—all lost!' It's only pluck that's everything. We must never lose that, mother, we must never lose that!"
"God grant we never may."
CHAPTER V.
A WET BLANKET.
The morning sun filled the front rooms of the flat, and the heavy hearts within were the lighter for its cheery rays. Sorrow may outlive the night, and small joy come in the morning; but yet, if you are young and sanguine, and the month be May, and the heavens unspotted, and the air nectar, then you may suddenly find yourself thrilling with an unwarrantable delight in mere life, and that in the very midst of life's miseries. It was so with young Harry Ringrose, on the morning following his tragic home-coming; it was even so with Harry's mother, who was as young at heart as her boy, and fully as sanguine in temperament. They had come down from the high ground of the night. The everyday mood had supervened. Harry was unpacking his ostrich eggs in the narrow passage, and thoroughly enjoying a pipe; in her own room his mother sat cleaning her silver, incredible contentment in her face, because her boy was in and out all the morning, and the little flat was going to bring them so close together.
"That's the lot," said Harry when the bed was covered with the eggs. "Now, mother, which do you think the best pair?"