end, and rushed home to see
my mother. I wonder what she thought of the difference a couple of
weeks had made in me? When I started to Dicky's I had been limp,
dejected, and down on my luck. Now she found me chirpy, and with a
stiff upper lip. She did not make remarks, but I could see how relieved
she was.

My mother was not the person to take a mean advantage of me, or get me
into a corner to lecture me. Rather not! She took me for what I was,
and let me see how she loved me. That was the proper sort of help for
me. In some ways she made less of me than usual, but I could see why
she did that; she saw I wanted letting alone, and she did it, bless her!
Only on the last evening, a Sunday, as we walked back from church, she
said--

"Are you glad or sorry to be going back to-morrow, Tom?"

"Sorry for some things--glad for others. I fooled a bit last term, you
know, mother."

"Ah, well, sonny, it's part of the lessons of school to find out our
mistakes now and then. It was all new to you at first. I expect you
tried to do too much, you know."

"I know--you mean I'd best lie low a bit, mother."

"Yes. I know what you mean," said she.

"There you are!" exclaimed I, staggered by this new coincidence, "that's
what every chap has said. I'll do my best, really, mother; only it's
jolly hard. Don't be awfully sorry if I don't get right all at once;
I'll try, you know."

"You can't do more than your best, sonny dear."

"Redwood says," continued I, "that I shall probably tool about more or
less to the end of my time. It's in my line, he says; but he rather
backs me to pull myself together for all that."

"So do I, Tom. And the best friend you have does so too."

My journey next day was very different from the strange journey of a
term ago. I had neither tan boots nor square-topped hat nor lavender
gloves; and I could afford to smile with Langrish (who joined me _en
route_) at some of the poor little greenhorns on their way to make their
entry into Low Heath.

How different it was, too, to be hailed by half a dozen voices from the
top of the omnibus at the station and told to hop up beside them! And
how jolly to ride in triumph up Bridge Street, exchanging shouts with
familiar passengers on the way, or uttering defiant war-whoops at the
day boys!

And how jolly to tumble in at Sharpe's door once more, and slap one
another on the back, and crowd up into the old familiar faggery, and
hear all the old