y,
I maintained my father's princely reputation in the school. At times,
especially when the holidays arrived and I was left alone with Julia, I
had fits of mournfulness, and almost thought the boys happier than I was.
Going home began to seem an unattainable thing to me. Having a father,
too, a regular father, instead of a dazzling angel that appeared at
intervals, I considered a benefaction, in its way, some recompense to the
boys, for their not possessing one like mine. My anxiety was relieved by
my writing letters to my father, addressed to the care of Miss Julia
Rippenger, and posting them in her work-basket. She favoured me with very
funny replies, signed, 'Your own ever-loving Papa,' about his being
engaged killing Bengal tigers and capturing white elephants, a noble
occupation that gave me exciting and consolatory dreams of him.

We had at last a real letter of his, dated from a foreign city; but he
mentioned nothing of coming to me. I understood that Mr. Rippenger was
disappointed with it.

Gradually a kind of cloud stole over me. I no longer liked to ask for
pocket-money; I was clad in a suit of plain cloth; I was banished from
the parlour, and only on Sunday was I permitted to go to Julia. I ceased
to live in myself. Through the whole course of lessons, at play-time, in
my bed, and round to morning bell, I was hunting my father in an unknown
country, generally with the sun setting before me: I ran out of a wood
almost into a brook to see it sink as if I had again lost sight of him,
and then a sense of darkness brought me back to my natural consciousness,
without afflicting me much, but astonishing me. Why was I away from him?
I could repeat my lessons in the midst of these dreams quite fairly; it
was the awakening among the circle of the boys that made me falter during
a recital and ask myself why I was there and he absent? They had given
over speculating on another holiday and treat from my father; yet he had
produced such an impression in the school that even when I had descended
to the level of a total equality with them, they continued to have some
consideration for me. I was able to talk of foreign cities and could tell
stories, and I was, besides, under the immediate protection of Heriot.
But now the shadow of a great calamity fell on me, for my dear Heriot
announced his intention of leaving the school next half.

'I can't stand being prayed at, morning and evening, by a fellow who
hasn't the pluck to