had happened. He
had passed away, utterly beyond her company, her world, her interests.
She crept along to her room, and there, with a determination and a
strength rare in a child so young and so undisciplined, faced her
loneliness.

CHAPTER XI. THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

I

The holidays were over. The Coles were once more back in Polchester, and
the most exciting period of Jeremy's life had begun. So at any rate he
felt it. It might be that in later years there would be new exciting
events, lion-hunting, for instance, or a war, or the tracking of niggers
in the heart of Africa--he would be ready for them when they came--but
these last weeks before his first departure for school offered him the
prospect of the first real independence of his life. There could never
be anything quite like that again. Nevertheless, school seemed still a
long way distant. It was only his manliness that he was realising and
a certain impatience and restlessness that underlay everything that he
did.

September and October are often very lovely months in Polchester; autumn
seems to come there with a greater warmth and richness than it does
elsewhere. Along all the reaches of the Pol, right down to the sea, the
leaves of the woods hung with a riotous magnificence that is glorious
in its recklessness. The waters of that silent river are so still, so
glassy, that the banks of gold and flaming red are reflected in all
their richest colour down into the very heart of the stream, and it is
only when a fish jumps or a twig falls from the overhanging trees that
the mirror is broken and the colours flash into ripples and shadows of
white and grey. The utter silence of all this world makes the Cathedral
town sleepy, sluggish, forgotten of all men. As the autumn comes it
seems to drowse away into winter to the tune of its Cathedral bells,
to the scent of its burning leaves and the soft steps of its Canons
and clergy. There is every autumn here a clerical conference, and
long before the appointed week begins, and long after it is lawfully
concluded, clergymen, strange clergymen with soft black hats, take the
town for their own, gaze into Martin the pastry-cook's, sit in the dusk
of the Cathedral listening to the organ; walk, their heads in air, their
arms folded behind their backs, straight up Orange Street as though they
were scaling Heaven itself; stop little children, pat their heads, and
give them pennies; stand outside Poole's bookshop and de