CHAPTER XII.
THE WHITE CROSS.
| "It is not growing like a tree |
| In bulk, doth make man better be, |
| Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, |
| To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere. |
| The lily of a day |
| Is fairer far in May, |
| Although it fade and die that night |
| It was the plant and flower of light; |
| In small proportions we just beauties see, |
| And in short measures life may perfect be." |
| "Early Ripe."—Ben Jonson. |
It seemed as if she had been right. Ted came home with bright eyes and glowing cheeks, and said they had had an "awfully" merry evening. And his mother went to bed with an easy mind.
But the next morning she felt less happy again, for Ted was evidently not well. He was not very ill, but just not very well, and he hung about in an uninterested, unsettled way, quite unlike his usual busy briskness.
"He excites himself too much when he goes out, I think," said his father; "we really shall have to leave off ever letting him go out in the evening unless we are there ourselves;" and he looked a little anxiously at Ted as he spoke, though the boy had not heard what he said.
But again this slight anxiety passed by. Then came a change in the weather, and a sudden frost set in. Ted seemed to revive at once, and when he heard that there was to be a whole holiday for skating, no one was more eager about it than he. And, a little against her own feelings, his mother let him go.
"You must be careful, Ted," she said; "you are not yet looking as well as usual. And the ice cannot be very firm. Indeed, I almost doubt its bearing at all. A bath in icy water would not do you any good just now."
But Ted promised to be careful, and his mother knew she could trust him. Besides, several big boys were to be there, who would, she knew, look after him. So Ted went, and came home saying it had been as usual "awfully jolly;" but he did look tired, and owned himself rather so, even though well enough to go out again in the evening with the others, and to be one of the merriest at what the children called "a penny reading" together, at which each in turn of the little party of friends read or repeated or acted some story or piece of poetry for the amusement of the others. And once again, but this was the last time she could do so, Ted's mother felt able to throw off the slight vague anxiety which had kept coming and going for the last few days about her little boy, and to go to sleep with an easy mind.