l. The prefects, instead of lolling disdainfully
in the back row, were ranged like councillors beneath the central
throne. This was an innovation of Mr. Pembroke's. Carruthers, the head
boy, sat in the middle, with his arm round Lloyd. It was Lloyd who had
made the matron too bright: he nearly lost his colours in consequence.
These two were grown up. Beside them sat Tewson, a saintly child in
the spectacles, who had risen to this height by reason of his immense
learning. He, like the others, was a school prefect. The house prefects,
an inferior brand, were beyond, and behind came the indistinguishable
many. The faces all looked alike as yet--except the face of one boy, who
was inclined to cry.

"School," said Mr. Pembroke, slowly closing the lid of the
desk,--"school is the world in miniature." Then he paused, as a man well
may who has made such a remark. It is not, however, the intention of
this work to quote an opening address. Rickie, at all events, refused to
be critical: Herbert's experience was far greater than his, and he must
take his tone from him. Nor could any one criticize the exhortations
to be patriotic, athletic, learned, and religious, that flowed like
a four-part fugue from Mr. Pembroke's mouth. He was a practised
speaker--that is to say, he held his audience's attention. He told them
that this term, the second of his reign, was THE term for Dunwood House;
that it behooved every boy to labour during it for his house's honour,
and, through the house, for the honour of the school. Taking a wider
range, he spoke of England, or rather of Great Britain, and of her
continental foes. Portraits of empire-builders hung on the wall, and he
pointed to them. He quoted imperial poets. He showed how patriotism had
broadened since the days of Shakespeare, who, for all his genius, could
only write of his country as--

"This fortress built by nature for herself Against infection and the
hand of war, This hazy breed of men, this little world, This precious
stone set in the silver sea."

And it seemed that only a short ladder lay between the preparation room
and the Anglo-Saxon hegemony of the globe. Then he paused, and in the
silence came "sob, sob, sob," from a little boy, who was regretting a
villa in Guildford and his mother's half acre of garden.

The proceeding terminated with the broader patriotism of the school
anthem, recently composed by the organist. Words and tune were still a
matter for taste, and it was