rvice, so my brother had plenty of
time to walk back to the station, and it was settled that I should go
part of the way with him. As we walked along the white road, that
stretched between uniform hedgerows of a shadowy greyness, I saw that
he had something on his mind. In this hour of my trial I was willing
to forget the past for the sake of talking for a few minutes with
some human being whom I knew, but he returned only vague answers to
my eager questions. At last he stopped in the middle of the road, and
said I had better turn back. I would liked to have walked farther
with him, but I was above all things anxious to keep up appearances,
so I said goodbye in as composed a voice as I could find. My brother
hesitated for a minute; then with a timid glance at heaven he put his
hand in his pocket, pulled out half a crown which he gave me, and
walked rapidly away. I saw in a flash that for him, too, it had been
an important moment; he had tipped his first schoolboy, and
henceforth he was beyond all question grown up.

I did not like him, but I watched him disappear in the dusk with a
desolate heart. At that moment he stood for a great many things that
seemed valuable to me, and I would have given much to have been
walking by his side with my face towards home and my back turned to
the grey and unsavoury town to which I had to bear my despondent
loneliness. Nevertheless I stepped out staunchly enough, in order
that my mind should take courage from the example of my body. I
thought strenuously of my brother's stories, of my play-box packed
for a voyage, of the money in my pocket increased now by my eldest
brother's unexpected generosity; and by dint of these violent mental
exercises I had reduced my mind to a comfortable stupor by the time I
reached the school gates. There I was overcome by shyness, and
although I saw lights in the form-rooms and heard the voices of boys,
I stood awkwardly in the playground, not knowing where I ought to go.
The mist in the air surrounded the lights with a halo, and my
nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of burning leaves.

I had stood there a quarter of an hour perhaps, when a boy came up
and spoke to me, and the sound of his voice gave me a shock. I think
it was the first time in my life a boy had spoken kindly to me. He
asked me my name, and told me that it would be supper-time in five
minutes, so that I could go and sit in the dining-hall and wait.
"You'll be all right, you know,