Our precious Robin has been far from well, lately. For some time now he has almost given up trying to walk. His crutches seemed to tire him more and more, and his left side has become so helpless that when he did attempt to get about it reminded one of a little lame bird trailing a broken wing.

The greater part of the day he has passed propped up with pillows in the big rocker in the window, or lying in his little crib, because he was “too tired” to sit up. And the deepening shadows beneath his eyes have quite wrung our hearts.

Dr. Porter has been very kind and attentive, but far from satisfied; and last week the stern edict went forth. Robin was to go to bed and stay there for no less a period than six weeks, with a heavy weight attached to his little thin leg.

Well, there is one comfort. Our darling baby seems more like himself since he has been forced at last to give up. He has lost some of the languor and gentle indifference that seemed to be growing on him. His merry grin flashes forth with reassuring frequency, followed by the deep dimple high in his cheek.

“He is resting,” said the doctor, “and he needs it. That boy is grit clear through,—a quality of which I don’t approve in patients, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Would you rather have them whine?” I asked.

“Yes,” returned the doctor, uncompromisingly. “I would.”

But Robin will never do that. In the first place, everybody is too good to him;—Mrs. Burroughs, Miss Brown, and the three Lysles. Indeed, Mr. Lysle is kind as kind can be. He has brought fruit for Bobsie several times, and seems quite distressed because “the little invalid” has not a better appetite. To-day he declared that he really did not see “how the child managed to survive on such a small amount of sustenance.” Whereat Ernie giggled, and I had some difficulty controlling my countenance, for it was at the table the observation was rumbled forth, just as the kind “Hippopotamus” was finishing his third helping of turkey.

Yes, turkey! if you please; though certainly it did seem some weeks ago as if the little Grahams could never again claim even so much as a bowing acquaintance with that royal bird. And after the turkey came ice cream and mince pie, served by Rose in a spotless cap and apron, while Rosebud purred upon the warm hearth in the kitchen, waiting his turn to lick the plates! For no sooner did plenty begin to smile again upon our household than Ernie (naughty Indian-giver!), demanded back her pet. “Mary would just as soon have one of the grocer’s new kittens,” she affirmed. “I’ve asked him about it, and he says we may take our pick.” So the compromise was effected. Rosebud, sleek and debonair as ever, returned to grace our home,—and such a welcome as the children gave him! Indeed, we were all glad. Things have not been so comfortable for months,—which reminds me of Robin’s poem.

It was this morning, while I was washing his face, that Bobs repeated it to me. A little soap got into his eyes. He screwed them up, and then remarked,—

“You must be more careful, Elizabeth, when you wash me, else my poem won’t stay true.”

“Your poem, Bobsie?” I repeated. Though, certainly, by this time I should be accustomed to the family weakness.

“Yes,” answered Robin, shyly. “Ernie wrote one, you know, and Haze, too,—so I thought I would. Shall I say it?”

And, without waiting to be pressed, he graciously began:—

“Isn’t that pretty?”

“Indeed it is, honey,” I answered. “How did you come to think of it?”

“Well,” confessed Robin, “I’d been crying just a little yesterday, Ellie, because I wanted to pertend to play tag and I couldn’t see out the window, and so I had to blow my nose; and I felt for my hankersniff under the pillow, and there it was! I didn’t have to ring or anything! And that made me think how lucky I am, and so I made up the poem. Is it nice enough to be written down?”

“It certainly is,” I answered. “I will put it in my diary, and some day when you are a big fat man Ellie will read it aloud to you, and we will both laugh.”

“Why will we laugh, Ellie dear?” asked Robin, innocently.

“Because we will be so glad that the little sick boy who composed it grew up strong and well,” I answered.

And so I have written “the poem” here, that I may be able to fulfil my part of the prophecy.

But now I want to talk a little of Geoffrey, for we are really anxious about him. There is no doubt the boy is very much changed.

Yesterday afternoon he dropped in to see Ernie nearly an hour before school was out.

“Why, Geof,” I said, “what are you doing here so early? It is scarcely two o’clock. Ernie isn’t home yet. Did you have a half-holiday?”

Geoffrey looked confused. “’Guess your clocks are wrong,” he answered. “Can you give a fellow a bit of lunch, Elizabeth?”

“I thought you got your lunch at school,” I returned. “But, of course,—if you are hungry. Rose has just finished baking. Isn’t that luck?” And I ran down to the kitchen, where a glass of milk, a couple of bananas, and a plate of hot ginger-bread were quickly collected.

Geof ate in silence, crumbling his ginger-bread over the tray cloth on the library table.

“Geoffrey!” I remonstrated. “That’s too good to waste. What you don’t want I am going to take up to Robin.”

“All right,” answered Geof, pushing his plate indifferently toward me. “How is the kid?” Then he broke into a short chuckle. “I say, Elizabeth,” he remarked, “there’s a trained bear out at the zoo that would tickle Bobs most to death. I’ve been feeding it peanuts all the morning. It’s gentle as a kitten, the keeper says,—jolly good sort he seems, too,—and——”

“Geoffrey!” I accused, in sudden shocked enlightenment. “You have been playing hookey.”

Geof flushed angrily, and bit his lip. “Well, and if I have?” he blustered. “It’s nobody’s business but my own, I suppose!”

“It certainly is somebody’s business,” I answered, decidedly. “And you ought to be ashamed of yourself. After all the trouble you were in last term over hockey and athletics, I should think you would have learned that such foolishness doesn’t pay.”

Geof sprang to his feet. “Now see here, Elizabeth,” he said, “I’m not going to be jawed by you. I get enough of that sort of talk at home. If you can’t be pleasant, I’ll go somewhere else. There are plenty of other places where a chap can spend the afternoon, and Hollister and Sam Jacobs are glad enough to show ’em to me.”

“Very well, Geoffrey,” I answered. “If you choose to treat the matter so! Only, I warn you frankly, in that case I shall go directly upstairs and tell mother,—I shan’t feel that I have any choice,—and she will tell Uncle George, I know.”

Geof turned on me incredulously. “You sneak!” he cried. “If that doesn’t sound exactly like Meta!”

“Oh, Geof dear!” I expostulated, hurt and shocked by his violence. “Don’t let’s quarrel, or misunderstand each other. You know very well I don’t want to get you into trouble. But Sam Jacobs and Jim Hollister are not the sort of fellows you ought to associate with. I don’t believe you really enjoy the places they take you to, either,—and in the end it can’t help but be found out. You are doing yourself an injustice, Geoffrey,—truly you are! Come, let’s sit down and talk things over quietly.”

I laid my hand on his arm. He tried to shake it off,—but the next instant his face changed.

“Hang it all, Elizabeth!” he blurted out. “If I had sisters like you and Ernie,—or a mother!”

And the first thing I knew big, strong, manly Geof had broken down, and was sobbing like a baby, his head buried in his arms on the library table.

And presently the whole wretched story came out. It seems that things have been going from bad to worse ever since last September. It was only by unusual pressure brought to bear by Aunt Adelaide, and equally unusual acquiescence on the part of the school authorities, that Geof managed to be promoted with his class this year, and he entered the new grade heavily conditioned in nearly all his studies. This, in itself, was bad; but what made the matter still harder was that in his case a weekly report has been substituted for the customary monthly one; he tutors three afternoons a week; and his progress is kept under rigid supervision.

“So if I’m not nagged about French, I am about Latin,” said poor Geoffrey; “and I tell you, Elizabeth, the schedule I’m carrying this year is enough to daze a Solomon.”

“But do you really try to study, Geof?” I asked. “Have you made one honest effort to set things right?”

Geof flushed. “Yes; I have,” he answered, sullenly. “But nobody believes it. And recently I’ve had so many headaches, and I don’t sleep well nights, and——”

“If Aunt Adelaide knew that?” I suggested.

“She’d think I was faking,” concluded Geof, hardily. “And I don’t know that I blame her much,” he admitted, the next minute. “You see, we never have gotten along. I was seven when my own mother died, and nine when the governor remarried,—just old enough to resent it. I remember for three weeks I wouldn’t call her ‘mamma,’ till finally the matter was taken to headquarters, and I had to. And then Meta didn’t make things any easier. We fought from the very start. And they’ve managed to set the governor against me, till now—Well, the latest threat is, if my March reports don’t show ‘marked improvement’ I’m to be packed off to the Catskills for the summer to a little tin soldier camp, where the fellows wear toy uniforms and tutor all through vacation. Pleasant prospect!”

“Then, Geoffrey, why in the world play hookey,” I asked, “and throw away your last possible chance of avoiding it?”

Geof was silent.

“Come, be sensible,” I urged. “Things do look black, I admit, but if for the next few weeks you learn the lessons set each day, and look neither forward nor back——”

“That’s just it,” interrupted Geof. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s too much behind me, Elizabeth. I can’t learn what we are having now, because I didn’t last term, or the year before. And,—and, you haven’t any idea how hard it is when everybody is down on a chap. Now that I’m out of athletics the fellows I used to go with have no further use for me; I never did get along with the grinds; and Hollister, Jacobs, and their set are always cordial and pleasant, at least. I’ve got to associate with somebody, I suppose? You don’t know what you are talking about,—that’s all.”

“Yes, I do, Geoffrey,” I replied. “It won’t be easy to turn round, I know;—but what is the use of complicating matters still further? Right is right, and wrong wrong; and hookey never paid yet. Will you give me your word that you will go to school to-morrow?”

Again Geof was silent, and I waited. It seemed hard, unsympathetic,—yet what was I to do? “Will you give me your word, Geof?” I reiterated.

“All right,” he muttered, sullenly, at last. “You have the whip-hand. I’ll go to school to-morrow and the day after. I won’t promise more than that. And Saturday, if I haven’t seen the governor myself, you are welcome to go and tell him anything you please. Does that satisfy you?”

It did not, entirely; but in Geof’s stubborn mood it was the best I could hope for, and at least he will have time to think things over till the end of the week. Poor, foolish fellow! I hope I shan’t be obliged to tell!