tion was by no means bad; but there must have been some hidden
flaw in his nature which might never have disclosed itself for any other
but me.

For me he had displayed, almost from the first, one of those special
antipathies that want but little excuse to ripen into hatred. My
personal appearance--I had the misfortune to be a decidedly plain
boy--happened to be particularly displeasing to him, and, as he had an
unsparing tongue, he used it to cover me with ridicule, until gradually,
finding that I did not retaliate, he indulged in acts of petty
oppression which, though not strictly bullying, were even more harassing
and humiliating.

I suspect now that if I had made ever so slight a stand at the outset, I
should have escaped further molestation, but I was not pugnacious by
nature, and never made the experiment; partly, probably, from a theory
on which I had been reared, that all violence was vulgar, but chiefly
from a tendency, unnatural in one of my age and sex, to find a
sentimental satisfaction in a certain degree of unhappiness.

So that I can neither pity myself nor expect pity from others for woes
which were so essentially my own creation, though they resulted, alas!
in misery that was real enough.

It was inevitable that quick-sighted Marjory should discover the
subjection into which I had fallen, and her final enlightenment was
brought about in this manner. Ormsby and I were together alone, shortly
before morning school, and he came towards me with an exercise of mine
from which he had just been copying his own, for we were in the same
classes, despite the difference in our ages, and he was in the habit of
profiting thus by my industry.

'Thanks, Cameron,' he said, with a sweetness which I distrusted, for he
was not as a rule so lavish in his gratitude. 'I've copied out that
exercise of yours, but it's written so beastly badly that you'd better
do it over again.'

With which he deliberately tore the page he had been copying from to
scraps, which he threw in my face, and strolled out down to the
playground.

I was preparing submissively to do the exercise over again as well as I
could in the short time that was left, when I was startled by a low cry
of indignation, and, looking round, saw Marjory standing in the doorway,
and knew by her face that she had seen all.

'Has Ormsby done that to you before?' she inquired.

'Once or twice he has,' said I.

'And you let him!' she cried. 'Oh, Cameron!'

'W