kind
of surly listlessness. He was like somebody who through the carelessness
of his nurse or guardian has been crippled in youth, and who is
preparing to enter the world with a suppressed resentment against
everybody and everything.

"Not still hankering after a lighthouse?" Uncle Henry asked, and one
seemed to hear his words snapping like dry twigs beneath the heavy tread
of his mind.

"I'm not hankering after anything," Mark replied sullenly.

"But you're looking forward to Mr. Hitchcock's office?" his uncle
proceeded.

Mark grunted an assent in order to be left alone, and the entrance of
Mr. Palmer who always had supper with his headmaster and employer on
Sunday evening, brought the conversation to a close.

At supper Mr. Palmer asked suddenly if the headmaster wanted Mark to go
into the Confirmation Class this term.

"No thanks," said Mark.

Uncle Henry raised his eyebrows.

"I fancy that is for me to decide."

"Neither my father nor my mother nor my grandfather would have wanted me
to be confirmed against my will," Mark declared. He was angry without
knowing his reasons, angry in response to some impulse of the existence
of which he had been unaware until he began to speak. He only knew that
if he surrendered on this point he should never be able to act for
himself again.

"Are you suggesting that you should never be confirmed?" his uncle
required.

"I'm not suggesting anything," said Mark. "But I can remember my
father's saying once that boys ought to be confirmed before they are
thirteen. My mother just before she died wanted me to be confirmed, but
it couldn't be arranged, and now I don't intend to be confirmed till I
feel I want to be confirmed. I don't want to be prepared for
confirmation as if it was a football match. If you force me to go to the
confirmation I'll refuse to answer the Bishop's questions. You can't
make me answer against my will."

"Mark dear," said Aunt Helen, "I think you'd better take some Eno's
Fruit Salts to-morrow morning." In her nephew's present mood she did not
dare to prescribe anything stronger.

"I'm not going to take anything to-morrow morning," said Mark angrily.

"Do you want me to thrash you?" Uncle Henry demanded.

Mr. Palmer's eyes glittered with the zeal of muscular Christianity.

"You'll be sorry for it if you do," said Mark. "You can of course, if
you get Mr. Palmer to help you, but you'll be sorry if you do."

Mr. Palmer looked at his chief as a te