"Perhaps not, mamma; but I feel very sorry to see him in such distress. Grandpa has forbidden him to leave the school-room or to have anything to eat but bread and milk till he can recite his lesson quite perfectly. And we had planned to go fishing this afternoon, if you should give permission, mamma."
"My son," she said with an affectionate look into the earnest face of the pleader, "I am glad to see your sympathy and love for your brother, but I think your grandpa loves him quite as well and knows far better what is for his good, and I cannot interfere between them; my children must all be as obedient and submissive to my father as they are to me."
"Yes, mamma, I know, and indeed we never disobey him. How could we when papa bade us not? and made him our guardian, too?"
Mrs. Travilla sat thinking for a moment after Harold had gone, then rose and went to the school-room.
Herbert sat there alone, idly drumming on his desk, the open book pushed aside. His face was flushed and wore a very disconsolate and slightly sullen expression.
He looked up as his mother came in, but dropped his eyes instantly, blushing and ashamed.
"Mamma," he stammered, "I—I can't learn this lesson, it's so very hard, and I'm so tired of being cooped up here. Mayn't I go out and have a good run before I try any more?"
"If your grandpa gives permission; not otherwise."
"But he won't; and it's a hateful old lesson! and I can't learn it!" he cried with angry impatience.
"My boy, you are grieving your mother very much," she said, sitting down beside him and laying her cool hand on his heated brow.