later on, when it is the
proper time, I am to be an architect. You know I am very fond of
architecture, and I feel that I must be an architect. I feel I shall
not be happy in the printing business because I want to be an architect.
I am now nearly seventeen. Perhaps it is too soon yet for me to be
apprenticed to an architect, and so I can go on learning business
habits. But I just want it to be understood. I am quite sure you wish
me to be happy in life, and I shan't be happy if I am always regretting
that I have not gone in for being an architect. I know I shall like
architecture.--Your affectionate son, Edwin Clayhanger."

Then, as an afterthought, he put the date and his address at the top.
He meditated a postscript asking for a reply, but decided that this was
unnecessary. As he was addressing the envelope Mrs Nixon called out to
him from below to come to tea. He was surprised to find that he had
spent over an hour on the letter. He shivered and sneezed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEVEN.

During tea he felt himself absurdly self-conscious, but nobody seemed to
notice his condition. The whole family went to chapel. The letter lay
in his pocket, and he might easily have slipped away to the post-office
with it, but he had had no opportunity to possess himself of a stamp.
There was no need to send the letter through the post. He might get up
early and put it among the morning's letters. He had decided, however,
that it must arrive formally by the postman, and he would not alter his
decision. Hence, after chapel, he took a match, and, creeping into the
shop, procured a crimson stamp from his father's desk. Then he went
forth, by the back way, alone into the streets. The adventure was not
so hazardous as it seemed and as it felt. Darius was incurious by
nature, though he had brief fevers of curiosity. Thus the life of the
children was a demoralising mixture of rigid discipline and freedom.
They were permitted nothing, but, as the years passed, they might take
nearly anything. There was small chance of Darius discovering his son's
excursion.

In crossing the road from chapel Edwin had opined to his father that the
frost was breaking. He was now sure of it. The mud, no longer brittle,
yielded to pressure, and there was a trace of dampness in the
interstices of the pavement bricks. A thin raw mist was visible in huge
spheres round the street lamps. T