Page:The Country-House Party.djvu/16

8 They nursed him through various illnesses, one of which nearly cost him his life. After this, they watched his every movement, always believing they were destined to lose him. At eighteen James declared himself a man, and shook off the caressing hands that almost stifled him.

'A fellow can't always be tied to his mother's apron-strings,' he would say; and broke from everything, save the conveniences of home, a place where he was fed and housed and cared for. Otherwise his life was outside, in his office and among his friends.

Now was the time for John to carry his wife away to the snow hills of Switzerland, or the fruit-laden land of Italy, but John had grown every year more contented, and—Margate was good enough for him.

She took up the coat again, looking for damages, and remembered she had a hundred pounds in the bank, a hundred pounds of her own, saved by good management out of the small income John could allow her for household expenses. That had been laid by for James. She had done without many a little thing for James, to give him this little nest-egg