One morning I saw my mother looking at my jacket. She appeared troubled and anxious. I could read her thoughts: she was thinking that I must soon have a new one, and of the means of getting it. We were so poor! She sighed as she looked at my worn-out jacket, and as she did so I coloured as if I had been found out in some grave fault. She then went to my father and consulted with him for a long while. After this consultation she went to her wardrobe—that wardrobe which was full of mysterious things—and from it she took a parcel, and laid it carefully on the table.

My father and I both came to the table, curious to see what was in the parcel: my mother took out the pins from the paper one by one, and put them in a little box. I felt very impatient to know what could be in that wonderful parcel, and I thought my mother’s fingers moved very slowly. At last she uncovered a coat, carefully folded up, which she at first took to the window to examine, and then spread out upon the table. This coat was a most wonderful and beautiful garment in my eyes; it was a green velvet hunting coat, with brass buttons. My mother smoothed it gently with her hand to get rid of any creases that there might be in it; then turning to my father she said, “This will do beautifully............