WHEN Bob recovered from his cold he expected that his aunt would want his services every evening again; but she had been obliged to engage a man during his illness, and had decided to keep the man on. She was beginning to realise that she had really worked the boy too hard; she had not meant to be unkind to him.
"Lady Margaret Browning was right, you do look pale and thin, Bob," she told him; "you might be half-starved by the look of you. But, though everything's so dear, I don't stint you in food, and I can't understand why you should look as if I do!"
"I think I shall be all right if I don't have such heavy loads to carry," Bob answered; "they used to do me up, and when I got to bed I couldn't sleep—I ached so."
Mrs. Mead looked at him uneasily. His thin white face seemed to reproach her, and she regretted that she had not been kinder to her brother's children. Seeing how they had grown to love her attic lodger, she knew that she, too, might have won their love had she tried to do so.
"Well, Bob," she said, and there was a gentler note in her voice than the boy had ever heard in it before, "take things easy for a while. What you've to do now is to pick up your strength and get rid of your cough."
The first day of Bob's return to school he encountered Tom Smith as he was coming home in the afternoon. The bully stopped him.
"Wait a minute," he said, "I want to speak to you."
"Well?" Bob said inquiringly.
"I've been reading about your father in the newspaper," Tom informed him; "if it's true what the newspaper says he's done—"
"Of course it's true!" interrupted Bob, adding, "I told you he was a brave man!"