02 Morning at Jalna by Mazo de La Roche

said Nicholas, “for there is a band on its leg and I have tied a ribbon to the band.” He put the end of the ribbon in his sister’s hand.
    The three were supremely happy in the glowing August afternoon. As they reclined on the warm grass Augusta drew Ernest’s head to her shoulder and stroked it. A kind of rapture surged up within her. Nicholas laid his head on her other shoulder. “Stroke me, too,” he said.
    Towards evening Lucius Madigan appeared in the room that served the children as a schoolroom. Augusta was memorizing a poem by chanting its lines over and over in a monotone. Nicholas was making a kite, while Ernest cut up strips of paper for its tail.
    The tutor wore an expression half-pleased, half-apologetic, as he said, “Well, it’s not my birthday but I have been given a present. Look.”
    There was no need to draw attention to his present, for it was a bulky sofa cushion of red and gold satin, with a tassel on each corner.
    “I may tell you,” Madigan said confidentially, “that I became so hot carrying it that I was tempted to leave it by the roadside.”
    The children stared in curiosity, while the dove walked daintily to the end of its tether.
    “How beautiful!” said Augusta.
    “I’ll wager I know who gave it you,” said Nicholas. “It was Amelia Busby.”
    Ernest jumped up. “Let me hold it, please,” he said. “I want to know how heavy it is.”
    With the cushion in his arms he exclaimed, “It’s quite light. I could carry it all that way and not be tired.” Then he promptly dropped it to the floor.
    As though exhausted Madigan sank down and laid his head on the cushion. “Now,” he said, “we can all rest together in peace.”
    “You’re a funny sort of teacher,” said Augusta.
    “I instruct you,” Madigan said, “by example. If you will watch me you will discover without effort what you should not do — should not be.”
    “We were happy here,” said Augusta, “till you came.” She spoke in wonder rather than displeasure.
    “It is my fate,” said Madigan, “to bring unhappiness.”
    “Then why,” asked Nicholas, “does Amelia Busby intend to marry you?”
    Madigan clutched his hair, as though distraught. “Don’t tell me,” he exclaimed, “that she intends to marry me!”
    “My mamma says” — Nicholas spoke didactically — “that when a woman begins to fuss over a man she means to marry him. Mamma says there’s no escape for him.”
    “You are wise beyond your years,” said the tutor. “Soon you will be instructing me, instead of I you.”
    Laughing he left them and carried the sofa cushion to his room on the top floor. Really he did not know what to do with it and his face sobered to a look of concern. There was no sofa in his room, so he laid it on a rather uncompromising cane-seated chair. Now he felt that the chair would be of no further use to him. He could not sit on that elegant cushion. He had a mind to carry it back to Amelia and tell her that there was no place in his life for such an article. He wished he had not shown it to the children. They would be certain to tell their mother. He had a mind to disappear that very night and leave the cushion behind him.
    The children did tell their mother of this present from Amelia. They told of it in a spirit of mischief, but Adeline regarded it seriously. She would have liked to see Madigan settled comfortably in life and feared that when he left Jalna he would drift aimlessly from one indifferent position to another. She admired Madigan’s learning. When speaking of him to outsiders, she exaggerated his scholarship to lofty intellectual attainment, but to the Sinclairs she called him “that good-for-nothing Irishman — God help him.” His admiration for Lucy Sinclair was too obvious.
    Adeline said, at the tea table, “I hear you’ve been given a handsome present by a young lady, Mr. Madigan.”
    “Ah, ’tis of no use to me,” he said.
    “Come now, don’t say that. There’s nothing