“Out,” replied Harold, starting off at a run, for it was wet and damp, and, to use England's English, “quite nasty.” Ted gave a low whistle of surprise, Harold as a rule was such a civil fellow. But no matter. What did he care where he was going, and entering the house with a latch-key, he tossed his hat on to a hook and started upstairs, his thoughts already far afield from all that concerned his younger brother. Back they came again, however, as he reached the landing, and the old clock struck twelve. “So late as that?” he said to himself, and deciding to wait for Harold, he turned and went down again to the library. He hoped he should not have to wait long, for, since he was rather counting on a good night's rest, nothing more exciting seemed to offer. In the mean time, he would make himself as comfortable as possible on the library lounge. Indeed, to make himself as comfortable as possible had gradually grown to be the one thing worth striving for in the estimation of this young gentleman. A beautiful portrait of his mother hung over the library mantel, but it belonged to a closed chapter of his life, and he had almost forgotten its existence. He had never dreamed this would be so; he had never meant it should be; but that did not alter the fact that, flattered and made much of ever since he went up to Oxford, he had somehow had little time to think of his mother, and, sorrier than that, little inclination. Death was such a desperately gloomy thing to contemplate! Besides, to keep thinking about it did not bring any one back. And yet, as much as in him lay, Ted had loved his mother, and been very proud of her too. It seemed hard that she should not have lived a great while longer. But then she had been so very sad sometimes, and life of course wasn't worth very much under those conditions. When it ceased to be awfully jolly, perhaps it was just as well to have done with it. For him, thank his stars! that unhappy period had not yet arrived. To be a Christ Church Senior, with plenty of money and plenty of friends and a head that easily mastered enough learning to make a good showing, left little to be desired, especially when already endowed with a handsome face and a physique that every man envied--at least, so thought Theodore Harris, and so thought and affirmed the half score of intimate friends who enjoyed many of the good things of this life through his bounty. It was a pity that there was not one among them with insight enough to gauge the complacent fellow aright, and at the same time with honesty enough to take him to task for the profitless life he was leading. But nobody did, and so on he fared, thoughtless and selfish, and so wholly absorbed in the present that even alone and at midnight, with his eyes resting full upon his mother's portrait, he had no thought to give it nor the worthier past that it stood for. Indeed, to judge from the discontented look on his face, his mind did not rise for a moment above the level of his annoyance at being kept waiting.