it."

"I don't know," replied Day. "He ran off to dress himself, I suppose,
and he didn't come back. But I say, you're better now."

"Oh yes!" I said, "I'm better now;" and by degrees the walk in the warm
afternoon sunshine seemed to make me feel more myself; beside which I
was dry when I got back home, but very low-spirited and dull.

I did not say anything, for my mother was lying down, and Mrs Beeton
never invited my confidence; beside which I felt rather
conscience-stricken, and after having my solitary tea I went to the
window, feeling warmer, and less disposed to shiver.

And as I sat there about seven o'clock on that warm summer evening it
almost seemed as if my afternoon's experience had been a dream, and that
Shock had not swum out and saved me from drowning, for there he was
under one of the pear-trees, with a switch and a piece of clay, throwing
pellets at our house, one of which came right in at the open window
close by my cheek, and struck against Mrs Beeton's cheffonier door.

CHAPTER FIVE.

BEGINNING A NEW LIFE.

I don't want to say much about a sad, sad time in my life, but old
Brownsmith played so large a part in it then that I feel bound to set it
all down.

I saw very little more of George Day, for just about that time he was
sent off to another school; and I am glad to recollect that I went
little away from the invalid who used to watch me with such wistful
eyes.

I had no more lessons in swimming, but I saved up a shilling for a
particular purpose, and that was to give to Shock; but though I tried to
get near him time after time when I was in the big garden with my
mother, no sooner did I seem to be going after him than the boy went off
like some wild thing--diving in amongst the bushes, and, knowing the
garden so well, he soon got out of sight.

I did not want to send the present by anybody, for that seemed to me
like entering into explanations why I sent the money; and I knew that if
the news reached my mother's ears that I had been half-drowned, it would
come upon her like a terrible shock; and she was, I knew now, too ill to
bear anything more.

So though I was most friendly in my disposition towards Shock, and
wanted to pay him in my mild way for saving my life, he persisted in
looking upon me as an enemy, and threw clay, clods, and, so to speak,
derisive gestures, whenever we met at a distance.

"I won't run after him any more," I said to myself one day. "He's half
a w