Milk and cakes were added to the fare.

It was a banquet, in Sophy's eyes, worthy that happy day.

And when Lionel had finished his share of the feast, eating fast, as spirited, impatient boys formed to push on in life and spoil their digestion are apt to do; and while Sophy was still lingering over the last of the strawberries, he threw himself back on his chair and drew forth his letter.

Lionel was extremely fond of his mother, but her letters were not often those which a boy is over-eager to read.

It is not all mothers who understand what boys are,--their quick susceptibilities, their precocious manliness, all their mystical ways and oddities.