Then he handed it across to the mother without
a word, but with the look one doctor gives another in discovering a new
and terrible symptom in a patient on whom they are consulting. While the
mother read, the father opened the little packet, and out rolled a tiny
plait of silky brown hair tied into a loop with a blue ribbon.
"Disgusting!" exclaimed the father and mother, simultaneously, to each
other, as though the boy was not there.
"I am shocked at you, Henry," said the mother.
"I shall certainly write to the forward little girl's parents," said the
father.
"Oh, don't do that, father," exclaimed the boy, in terror, and half
wondering if so sweet a thing could really be so criminal.
"Don't dare to speak to me," said the father. "Leave the
breakfast-table. I will see you again this evening."
Henry knew too well what the verb "to see" signified under the
circumstances, and the day passed in such apprehensive gloom that it was
a positive relief, when evening had at last come, to feel a walking-cane
about him, at once more snaky and more notched than any previously
applied to his stubborn young frame.
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