kins. The former continued to encourage me to persevere in my
behaviour before Smith, predicting that it would be sure, sooner or
later, to make our reconciliation certain. But at present it did not
look much like it. If I appeared cheerful and easy-minded, so did
Smith. The signs of relenting which I looked for were certainly not to
be discovered, and, so far from meeting me half way, the more
unconcerned about him I seemed, the more unconcerned he seemed about me.

"Of course he'll be like that at first," said Hawkesbury, when I
confided my disappointment one day to him, "but it won't last long.
He's not so many friends in the world that he can afford to throw you
over."

And so I waited week after week. I saw him daily, but our eyes scarcely
ever met. Only when I glanced at him furtively I thought him looking
paler and thinner even than usual, and longed still more intensely to
call him my friend and know why it was.

"Most likely he's fretting," said Hawkesbury, "and will soon give in.
It's a wonder to me how he's held out so long."

"Unless he speaks to me soon, I'll risk everything and speak to him."

"I can quite understand your anxiety," said my counsellor, "but I really
wouldn't be too impatient."

I tried to find out from Billy the reason of Jack's altered looks.

"Yaas," said he, in response to my inquiry whether he had heard if my
friend was ill--"yaas, he do look dicky. `Governor,' says I, `what's
up?' I says. `Up,' says he, `what do you mean by it?' says he. `Go
on,' says I, `as if you didn't know you was queer!' `I ain't queer,'
says he. `Oh, no, ain't you,' says I; `what do you want to look so
green about the mazard for, then?' says I. `Oh, that's nothing,' says
he; `reading late at night, that's what that is,' says he. `Turn it
up,' says I. `So I will,' says he, `when my Sam's over,' says he.
Bless you, governor, I'd like to give that there Sam a topper, so I
would."

So, then, he was reading for an examination! This paleness, after all,
did not come from fretting on my account, but because he had found an
occupation which drove me from his thoughts evening after evening!

I felt more hopeless of recovering my friend than ever.

"Do you go to the ragged school still?" I asked.

"Yaas, a Fridays. I say, governor, look here."

He dipped his finger into his blacking-pot, and, after cleaning the
flagstone on which he knelt with his old hat, proceeded laboriously and
slowly to