do without first going through the process of belabouring somebody
else with it all, suddenly rushed into the subject of Arthur's illness,
and what he had said about death.

East had given him the desired opening. After a serio-comic grumble,
"that life wasn't worth having, now they were tied to a young beggar
who was always 'raising his standard;' and that he, East, was like a
prophet's donkey, who was obliged to struggle on after the donkey-man
who went after the prophet; that he had none of the pleasure of starting
the new crotchets, and didn't half understand them, but had to take the
kicks and carry the luggage as if he had all the fun," he threw his legs
up on to the sofa, and put his hands behind his head, and said,--

"Well, after all, he's the most wonderful little fellow I ever came
across. There ain't such a meek, humble boy in the school. Hanged if
I don't think now, really, Tom, that he believes himself a much worse
fellow than you or I, and that he don't think he has more influence in
the house than Dot Bowles, who came last quarter, and isn't ten yet. But
he turns you and me round his little finger, old boy--there's no mistake
about that." And East nodded at Tom sagaciously.

"Now or never!" thought Tom; so, shutting his eyes and hardening his
heart, he went straight at it, repeating all that Arthur had said, as
near as he could remember it, in the very words, and all he had himself
thought. The life seemed to ooze out of it as he went on, and several
times he felt inclined to stop, give it all up, and change the subject.
But somehow he was borne on; he had a necessity upon him to speak it all
out, and did so. At the end he looked at East with some anxiety, and was
delighted to see that that young gentleman was thoughtful and attentive.
The fact is, that in the stage of his inner life at which Tom had lately
arrived, his intimacy with and friendship for East could not have lasted
if he had not made him aware of, and a sharer in, the thoughts that were
beginning to exercise him. Nor indeed could the friendship have lasted
if East had shown no sympathy with these thoughts; so that it was a
great relief to have unbosomed himself, and to have found that his
friend could listen.

Tom had always had a sort of instinct that East's levity was only
skin-deep, and this instinct was a true one. East had no want of
reverence for anything he felt to be real; but his was one of those
natures that burst into what is