Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/135

 of no use whatever, it was the German paints which Mrs. Eaton, feeling miserly from the Christmas spending, finally bought. Edward, she felt, would never know the difference.

But he did. And when he opened the paint-box and saw that for which he had so long waited, he suffered one of the most bitter and poignant disappointments of his life.

But he dared not let Dear Mother read the expression on his face, so he flung his arms about her and buried the expression against her rustling black silk dress.

Later he carried the paints to the little attic over the wood-house and tried them and gave up, and flung himself presently face down on the hard dusty floor and wept in an unmanly way. His father coming home from the church by the short cut through the woods heard the muffled sound of the weeping and climbed the attic stairs to ascertain the cause.

"Hurt?" he asked.

Edward was about ready to stop crying anyway and he got to his feet and quickly controlled himself, unless we may reckon an occasional sniffle a lack of self-control.

"Mother promised me some paints for my birthday if I'd be good," said Edward, "and I've