d what fun it would be to run races
all the way down and see who could reach the golden angels over the
reredos first; he felt no reverence, and yet a deep reverence, no fear,
but, nevertheless, awe; he was warm and happy and comfortable, and yet
suddenly, giving a little shudder, he slipped out into the sunlight,
released Hamlet and started for home.

II

Back again in the bosom of his family he felt that they were beginning
to be aware of his departure.

"What shall we do this evening, Jeremy--your last evening?" said his
mother.

Everyone looked at him.

"Oh, I don't know," he said uncomfortably. "Just as usual, I suppose."

"You're making him feel uncomfortable," said Aunt Amy, who loved to
explain quite obvious things. "You want it to be just an ordinary
evening, dear, don't you?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said again, hating his aunt.

"I don't think that quite the way to speak to your aunt, my son," said
his father. "We only inquire out of kindness, thinking to please you.
No, Mary, no more. Friday--one helping--"

"Jeremy might have another as it's his last day, I suggest," said Aunt
Amy, who was determined to be pleasant.

"I don't want any, thank you," said Jeremy, although it was treacle
pudding, which he loved.

"Well, I think," said Mrs. Cole, "that we'll have high tea at half-past
seven, and the children shall stay up afterwards and we'll have
'Midshipman Easy.'"

Jeremy loved his mother intensely at that moment. How did she know so
exactly what was right? She made so little disturbance, was so quiet
and was never angry, and yet she was always right when the others were
always wrong. She knew that above all things he loved high tea--fish pie
and boiled eggs and tea and jam and cake--a horrible meal that his later
judgment would utterly condemn, but nevertheless something so cosy and
so comfortable that no later meal would ever be able to rival it in
those qualities.

"Oh, that will be lovely!" he said, his face shining all over.

Nevertheless, as the afternoon advanced a strange new sense of
insecurity, unhappiness and forlornness crept increasingly upon him. He
realised that he had that morning said good-bye to the town, and now he
felt as though he had, in some way, hurt or insulted it. And, all the
afternoon, he was saying farewell to the house. He did not wander from
room to room, but rather sat up in the schoolroom pretending to mend a
fishing rod which Mr. Monk had given him t