epetitions
_then_, what his father wished him to be, and the principles in
accordance with which he had endeavoured to mould his thoughts and
actions.

The time passed too quickly for them both; they were soon at the top of
the hill where the carriage awaited them.

"Good-bye, Walter. God bless you," said Mr Evson, shaking hands for
the last time, and throwing deep meaning into those simple words.

"Good-bye, papa. My best love to all at home," said Walter, trying to
speak cheerfully, and struggling manfully to repress his rising tears.

The carriage drove on. Walter watched it out of sight, and, turning
round, felt that a new phase of his life had begun, and that he was
miserably alone. It was natural that he should shed a few quiet tears
as he thought of the dear friends with whom he had parted, and the four
hundred strangers into whose society he was about to enter. Yet being
brave and innocent he feared nothing, and, without any very definite
religious consciousness, he had a clear and vivid sense that One Friend
was ever with him.

The emotions of a boy are as transient as they are keen, and Walter's
tears were soon dried. As he looked round, the old familiar voice of
the mountains was in his ears. He gazed with the delight of friendship
on their towering summits, and promised himself, many an exhilarating
climb up their steep sides. And now, too, for the first time--for
hitherto he had not much noticed the scenery around him--a new voice,
the great voice of the sea, broke with its grand but awful monotony upon
his listening ear. As he gazed upon the waves, glowing and flashing
with the golden network of autumnal sunbeams, it seemed to dawn upon him
like the discovery of a new sense, and he determined to stroll down to
the beach before re-entering the gates of Saint Winifred.

He wandered there not only with a boy's delight, but with the delight of
a boy whose eyes and ears have always been open to the beauty and wonder
of the outer world. He longed to have his brother with him there. He
picked up handfuls of the hard and sparkling sand; he sent the broad
flat pebbles flying over the surface, and skimming through the crests of
the waves; he half-filled his pockets with green and yellow shells, and
crimson fragments of Delessaria Sanguinea for his little sisters; and he
was full of pleasurable excitement when the great clock of Saint
Winifred's, striking five, reminded him that he had better go in,