In a few minutes George was in bed, and for the first time a sudden shock of homesickness came to him. His mother would not come to him that night and kiss his forehead, as she always did. It almost drove away the story of the siege of Bouchain; but in a little while he had lapsed into a sleep, in which dreams came of Bouchain, and the earl dressed up as Madame Geoffroy, and his mother sitting by the fire smiling, and Betty playing on the harpsichord, and then deep oblivion and the soundest of sleep.