ndow and sat
down in his corner, feeling quite certain every one of his
fellow-travellers must be secretly smiling at his expense. He wished
his mother would have whispered that last sentence. It wasn't fair to
him. In short, Stephen felt a trifle aggrieved; and, with a view to
manifesting his hardihood, and dispelling all false impressions caused
by the maternal injunction, he let down the window and put his bare head
out of it for about a quarter of an hour, until a speck of dust settled
in his eye and drove him back to his seat.

It is decidedly awkward to get dust in your eye when you want to figure
as a hero, for the eyes will water, and must be wiped, and that looks
particularly like weeping. Stephen refrained from using his
handkerchief as long as he could; but it was no use; he must wipe his
eye in the presence of his fellow-passengers. However, if he whistled a
tune while doing so, no one could suspect him of real tears; so he
struck up, "Glide along, my bonny boat," as cheerfully as he could, and
mopped his smarting eye at the same time. Alas! the dust only got
farther in, and the music, after half an hour's heroic perseverance,
flagged altogether. It was no use trying to appear heroic any longer,
so, what with pain and a dawning sense of loneliness and home-sickness,
Stephen shed a _few_ real tears into his handkerchief, an indulgence
which did him good in every way, for it not only relieved his drooping
spirits, but washed that wretched piece of dust fairly out of its
hiding-place.

This relief, with the aid of a bun and a bottle of ginger-beer at one of
the stations, set him, so to speak, on his feet again, and he was able
to occupy the rest of his journey very pleasantly in drumming his heels
on the floor, and imagining to himself all the marvellous exploits which
were to mark his career at Saint Dominic's. He was to be a prodigy in
his new school from the very first; in a few terms he was to be captain
of the cricket club, and meanwhile was to gain the favour of the Sixth
by helping them regularly in their lessons, and fighting any one against
whom a special champion should be requisite. He was, indeed, just being
invited to dinner with the Doctor, who was about to consult him
concerning some points of school management, when the train suddenly
pulled up at Maltby, and his brother Oliver's head looked in at the
window with a "Hullo! here you are! Tumble out!"

Oliver and Stephen were Mrs Gree