mindedness,' as some one calls it. They will read a good deal
that is bad, of course; but innocence is as slippery as a duck's
back; a boy really fond of reading is generally pure-minded enough.
When you see a robust, active, out-of-door boy deeply engrossed in a
book, then you may suspect it if you like, and ask him what he has
got; it will probably have an animal bearing."

Friendships more or less ardent, butterfly-hunting, school games,
constant visits to the cathedral for service, to which he was always
keenly devoted, uneventful holidays, filled up most of his school
life. His letters at this date are very ordinary; his early precocity
seemed, rather to the delight of his parents, to have vanished.
He was not a prig, though rather exclusive; not ungenial, though
retiring. "A dreadful boy," he writes of himself, "who is as mum as
a mouse with his elders, and then makes his school friends roar with
laughter in the passage: dumb at home, a chatterbox at school."

"I had no religion at that time," he writes, "with the exception of
six months, when I got interested in it by forming a friendship
with an attractive ritualistic curate; but my confirmation made no
impression on me, and I think I had no moral feelings that I could
distinguish. I had no inherent hatred of wrong, or love for right;
but I was fastidious, and that kept me from being riotous, and
undemonstrative, which made me pure."

CHAPTER II

Arthur went up to the University, Trinity College, Cambridge, in
1870; he did not distinguish himself there, or acquire more than he
had done at Winchester: "The one thing I learnt at Winchester that
has been useful to me since, was how to tie up old letters: my
house-master taught me how to do that--it was about all he was fit
for. The thing I learnt at Cambridge was to smoke: my cousin Fred
taught me that, and he was hardly fit for that."

As it was at Cambridge that I first met him, I will give a short
description of him as far as I can remember.

He was a tall, lounging fellow, rather clumsy in his movements, but
with a kind of stateliness about him; he looked, and was, old for his
years. He was a little short-sighted and wore glasses; without them
his brow had that puzzled, slightly bothered look often seen in
weak-sighted people. His face was not unattractive, though rather
heavy; his hair was dark and curly--he let it grow somewhat long from
indolence--and he had a drooping moustache. He was one of