as himself. Also Mary.
He felt kind to Mary, and when she whispered "Are you enjoying it,
Jeremy?" he answered "Yes; are you?" Not because he was really enjoying
it, but because he knew that she wanted him to say that.

He could see Ernest from where he sat, and he knew that Ernest was
laughing at him. He remembered that he had given Ernest three splendid
marbles, just before his departure to school, as a keepsake. How he
wished that he had kept them! He would never give Ernest anything again
except blows. Mary might be tiresome sometimes, but she was his sister,
and he greatly preferred her as a girl to Ernest's sisters. He could see
them now, greedy, ugly things...

"Now, Jeremy, wipe your mouth," said Aunt Amy.

He obeyed at once.

III

Tea over, they all trooped out into the garden again. The evening light
now painted upon the little green lawn strange trembling shadows of
purple and grey; the old red garden wall seemed to have crept forwards,
as though it would protect the house and the garden from the night; and
a sky of the faintest blue seemed, with gentle approval, to bless the
quiet town fading into dusk beneath it. Over the centre of the lawn the
sun was still shining, and there it was warm and light. But from every
side the shadows stealthily crept forward. A group of children played
against the golden colour, their white dresses patterns that formed
figures and broke and formed again. The Cathedral bell was ringing for
evensong, and its notes stole about the garden, and in and out amongst
the children, as though some guardian spirit watching over their safety
counted their numbers.

Jeremy, feeling rather neglected and miserable, stood in the shadow near
the oak on the farther side of the lawn. He did not want to play with
those little girls, and yet he was hurt because he had not been asked.
The party had been a most miserable failure, and a year ago it would
have been such a success. He did not know that he was standing now, in
the middle of his eighth year, at the parting of the ways; that only
yesterday he had been a baby, and that he would never be a baby again.
He did not feel his independence--he felt only inclined to tears and
a longing, that he would never, never confess, even to himself, that
someone should come and comfort him! Nevertheless, even at this very
moment, although he did not know it, he, a free, independent man, was
facing the world for the first time on his own legs.