with him and read to Nestie
as they lay in a grassy hollow together. And on these days they would
fall a-talking, and it would end in a photograph being taken from a
case, and after they had studied it together, both would kiss the face,
which was as if Nestie had kissed himself. Regular frequenters of the
North Meadow began to take an interest in the pair, so that the golfers
would cry "Fore" in quite a kindly tone when they got in the way of the
balls, and one day old Peter Peebles, the chief of the salmon-fishers
and a man of rosy countenance, rowed them up to Woody Island, and then
allowed the boat to drop down with the tide past the North Meadow and
beneath the two bridges, and landed them at the South Meadow, refusing
all recompense with fierce words. Motherly old ladies whose families
were off their hands, and who took in the situation at a glance, used to
engage Mr. Molyneux in conversation in order to warn him about Nestie's
flannels and the necessity of avoiding damp at nightfall. And many who
never spoke to them, and would have repudiated the idea of sentiment
with scorn, had a tender heart and a sense of the tears of things as the
pair, strange and lonely, yet contented and happy, passed them in the
evening.

When the time came that Nestie had to leave Miss Letitia's, his father
began to hang round the Seminary taking observations, and his heart was
heavy within him. After he had watched a scrimmage at football--a dozen
of the aboriginal savages fighting together in a heap, a mass of legs,
arms, heads--and been hustled across the terrace in a rush of Russians
and English, from which he emerged without his hat, umbrella, or book,
and after he had been eyewitness of an encounter between Jock Howieson
and Bauldie over a misunderstanding in marbles, he offered to teach
Nestie at home.

"Those Scotch boys are very ... h-healthy, Nestie, and I am not sure
whether you are quite ... fit for their ... habits. There is a master,
too, called ... Bulldog, and I am afraid----" and Mr. Molyneux looked
wistfully at his boy.

"Why, pater, you are very n-naughty, and don't d-deserve two lumps of
sugar," for ever since they were alone he had taken his mother's place
and poured out the tea. "Do you think I am a coward? A boy must learn to
play games, you know, and they won't be hard on a little chap at first.
I'll soon learn f-football and ... the other things. I can play golf a
little now. Didn't you tell me, pater, that m