hes. Those faces were
worth looking at. Not that they were all handsome, though even in the
matter of handsomeness they had the advantage of any set of people the
children had ever seen. But it was the expression of their faces that
made them worth looking at. The children could not tell at first what it
was.

'I know,' said Anthea suddenly. 'They're not worried; that's what it
is.'

And it was. Everybody looked calm, no one seemed to be in a hurry, no
one seemed to be anxious, or fretted, and though some did seem to be
sad, not a single one looked worried.

But though the people looked kind everyone looked so interested in the
children that they began to feel a little shy and turned out of the big
main path into a narrow little one that wound among trees and shrubs and
mossy, dripping springs.

It was here, in a deep, shadowed cleft between tall cypresses, that they
found the expelled little boy. He was lying face downward on the mossy
turf, and the peculiar shaking of his shoulders was a thing they had
seen, more than once, in each other. So Anthea kneeled down by him and
said--

'What's the matter?'

'I'm expelled from school,' said the boy between his sobs.

This was serious. People are not expelled for light offences.

'Do you mind telling us what you'd done?'

'I--I tore up a sheet of paper and threw it about in the playground,'
said the child, in the tone of one confessing an unutterable baseness.
'You won't talk to me any more now you know that,' he added without
looking up.

'Was that all?' asked Anthea.

'It's about enough,' said the child; 'and I'm expelled for the whole
day!'

'I don't quite understand,' said Anthea, gently. The boy lifted his
face, rolled over, and sat up.

'Why, whoever on earth are you?' he said.

'We're strangers from a far country,' said Anthea. 'In our country it's
not a crime to leave a bit of paper about.'

'It is here,' said the child. 'If grown-ups do it they're fined. When we
do it we're expelled for the whole day.'

'Well, but,' said Robert, 'that just means a day's holiday.'

'You MUST come from a long way off,' said the little boy. 'A holiday's
when you all have play and treats and jolliness, all of you together.
On your expelled days no one'll speak to you. Everyone sees you're an
Expelleder or you'd be in school.'

'Suppose you were ill?'

'Nobody is--hardly. If they are, of course they wear the badge, and
everyone is kind to you. I know a boy that