"Poor Ted," said Cissy, clambering down from her stool to give him a hug.
Ted accepted the hug, but not the pity.
"No, Cissy. I'm not poor Ted for that," he said merrily. "It was ever so kind of mother to put it all right, and ever so much kinder of her to do it that way. I shouldn't have liked not to pay it myself."
"I'll see if I can't get that fellow to swop his bird of Paradise for some of my stamps, when I go back to school," said Percy.
"Oh, thank you, Percy," said Ted, his eyes shining.
"Anyway you might have some peacocks'," Percy went on. "They're not so hard to get, and they look so pretty."
"Mother's got some screens made of them on the drawing-room mantelpiece," said Ted, "and one of them's got a lot of loose feathers sticking out at the back that are no use. Perhaps she'd give me one or two. Then I could make a nice cardful, with the peacocks' at the corners and the little ones in a sort of a wreath in the middle."
He looked at the sheet of white paper on to which, at present, his feathers were fastened. "Yes, it would be very pretty," he repeated. But just then the tea-bell rang, and the children left the museum for that day.
The boys were in it the next morning, when Ted's mother appeared with a rather graver face than usual. She did not come in, she knew that Ted was putting all in perfect order, and that he did not want her to see it till complete, so she only slightly opened the door and called him out.
"Ted," she said quietly, but Ted saw that she was sorry, "Ted, do you know anything of this?"