Here, reverting to more earthly topics, Nancy held up the cat arrayed in her sailor hat and jacket.

‘Look, this is Jack Tar!  Doesn’t she make a jolly sailor?’

A gleeful, hearty peal of laughter came from Teddy, and was heard in the adjoining room by his grandmother with comfort.  She called Mrs. John.

’Hear that, now!  Why, he’s getting quite himself again; it does him good to have a child to talk to.  She must come again.’

And this Nancy did, and the roses began to come back to Teddy’s cheeks, and then others of his playfellows were allowed to come and see him.

Certainly no little invalid could have received greater attention than he did during that time of convalescence.  Every day small offerings were presented at the door by the village children, and very diverse were the gifts.  Sometimes a bunch of wild-flowers, sometimes birds’ eggs, marbles, boxes of chalk, a packet of toffee or barley-sugar, a currant bun, a tin trumpet, a whistle, a jam tart, a penny pistol, and so on, till his mother declared she would have to stop taking them in, as they were getting such an accumulation of them.

‘And how is my little fellow-soldier?’ asked Mr. Upton, as he came in one day for his first visit to the little invalid after being downstairs.

‘He’ll soon be out of hospital,’ responded Teddy brightly.

‘And is he still fighting for his Captain?’

‘I think, sir, Ipse has been very good while I’ve been ill.’

’He has been lying low, has he?  If I mistake not, you will have a brush with him yet before long, so be on the look-out.’

And Teddy found the good rector’s words come true.  Days came when he tried his mother’s patience much by his fractiousness and restlessness, and he was more often the vanquished than the conqueror.

Even Nancy one day remonstrated with him.

‘You’re nasty and cross to-day.  No one pleases you.’

‘I want to get out.  I’m tired of this old kitchen.’

‘If you can’t get out, you can’t.  Being cross won’t take you out.’  This logic convinced, but did not comfort.

‘I expect your Captain won’t come near you when you’re cross.’  And then Teddy burst out crying,—­

’I’m not a soldier at all.  I don’t know how to stand fire, and it’s all Ipse, and I’m too tired to fight him!’

Poor little soldier!  One above took note of the physical weakness and weariness, and in His tenderness pitied and forgave.

CHAPTER X

Found

It was winter time, and Teddy was back at school, full of health and spirits, yet, through all his boyish mirth, the loss of his button was never forgotten.  Daily he prayed for it to be found, and his hope and faith in God never failed him.

’Perhaps God will send it to me for a Christmas surprise.  Perhaps I shall find it in my stocking on Christmas morning,’ he used to say to his mother; and she told him to pray on.