Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/80

 ploring and big-game hunting when his Dear Mother had decided that it was best for him to enter the church and preach sermons and take up collections? And when she told visitors that she believed it more than likely that one day her "Darling Edward" would go into the church—"he is curiously spiritual for a child"—what could her Darling Edward say or do?

It was never wise to make an issue of anything with Dear Mother. If he told her —and especially before visitors—that he was now bent on being an explorer and going about armed to the teeth, and no longer cared a fig for vestments or rituals and the saving of people's souls, there would be an awful row. It was best to let her think what she liked to think and to keep the knowledge that her thoughts were running on the wrong track entirely to himself. That way lay peace, and endless opportunities to peruse the African book, which he had had the cleverness to hide in a little attic over an outhouse.

But one day Dear Mother wanted to know why Edward was always disappearing into the said outhouse and remaining so long hidden therein.

She feared that he might be up to some mischief, and she let him see that it was her intention some fine day to pay him a sudden and unsuspected visit and see for herself.