RUPLES--BABY CECIL--I PREPARE--I RUN AWAY.

I think it was Fred's telling me tales of the navy captain's boyhood
which put it into our heads that the only way for people at our age,
and in our position, to begin a life of adventure is to run away.

The captain had run away. He ran away from school. But then the school
was one which it made your hair stand on end to hear of. The master
must have been a monster of tyranny, the boys little prodigies of
wickedness and misery, and the food such as would have been rejected
by respectably reared pigs.

It put his grandson and me at a disadvantage that we had no excuses of
the kind for running away from the grammar school. Dr. Jessop was a
little pompous, but he was sometimes positively kind. There was not
even a cruel usher. I was no dunce, nor was Fred-though he was below
me in class--so that we had not even a grievance in connection with
our lessons. This made me feel as if there would be something mean
and almost dishonourable in running away from school. "I think it
would not be fair to the Doctor," said I; "it would look as if he had
driven us to it, and he hasn't. We had better wait till the holidays."

Fred seemed more willing to wait than I had expected; but he planned
what we were to do when we did go as vigorously as ever.

It was not without qualms that I thought of running away from home. My
mother would certainly be greatly alarmed; but then she was greatly
alarmed by so many things to which she afterwards became reconciled!
My conscience reproached me more about Rupert and Henrietta. Not one
of us had longed for "events" and exploits so earnestly as my sister;
and who but Rupert had prepared me for emergencies, not perhaps such
as the captain had had to cope with, but of the kinds recognized by
the yellow leather book? We had been very happy together--Rupert,
Henrietta, Baby Cecil, and I--and we had felt in common the one defect
of our lives that there were no events in them; and now I was going to
begin a life of adventure, to run away and seek my fortune, without
even telling them what I was going to do.

On the other hand, that old mean twinge of jealousy was one of my
strongest impulses to adventure-seeking, and it urged me to perform my
exploits alone. Some people seem to like dangers and adventures whilst
the dangers are going on; Henrietta always seemed to think that the
pleasantest part; but I confess that I think one of the best parts
must be whe