this. He would have been greatly surprised to hear he was selfish.

The accident by which his knee had been sprained severely was an
experience as trying as it was new to him. At first the petting he
received at home, and the attentions of his friends, added to his sense of
importance and made it endurable, but this could not continue
indefinitely. Ball playing and other sports must go on, and Maurice, to
his aggrieved surprise, found they could go on very well without him.

This morning his mother had expostulated mildly. "My son, you ought not to
make yourself so miserable. You could not be more unhappy if you were to
be lame always."

"It is _now_ I care about," he replied petulantly.

"I don't know what to do with Maurice," he overheard her say to his father
in the hall.

"Let him alone. I am ashamed of him," was Mr. Roberts's reply.

And now, deserted and abused, Maurice was very miserable, and when he
could stand it no longer he sought a distant spot in the garden and threw
himself face down in the grass.

He had been lying here some time when a voice apparently quite near asked,
"Have you hurt yourself?"

Lifting his flushed, unhappy face, he saw peeping at him through the hedge
the girl Katherine had been so interested in on Sunday. She, too, was
lying on the grass, and her fair hair was spread out around her like a