n; so that, between them, they imposed
silence upon Hughie and Miss Smith. One might have thought that the
postman had brought some ill news, depressing the household. Yet things
were not wont to be so bad in Wales; at that time, the day, as a rule,
began cheerfully enough. Their life had darkened in the shadow of
London; just when, for the child's sake, everything should have been
made as bright as possible. And he saw little hope of change for the
better. It did not depend upon him. The note of family life is struck
by the house-mistress, and Alma seemed fallen so far from her better
self that he could only look forward with anxiety to new developments
of her character.

'School?' he exclaimed, when Harry, with satchel over shoulder, came to
bid him good morning. 'I wish I could go in your place! It's just
thirty-one years since I left the old Grammar-School.'

The boy did not marvel at this. He would not have done so if the years
had been sixty-one; for Mr. Rolfe seemed to him an old man, very much
older than his own father.

As usual when at Greystone, Harvey took his first walk to the spots
associated with his childhood. He walked alone, for Morton had gone to
business until midday. On the outskirts of the town, in no very
pleasant situation, stood the house where he was born; new buildings
had risen round about it, and the present tenants seemed to be
undesirable people, who neglected the garden and were careless about
their window curtains. Here he had lived until he was ten years
old--till the death of his father. His mother died long before that; he
just, and only just, remembered her. He knew from others that she was a
gentle, thoughtful woman, always in poor health; the birth of her
second child, a girl, led to a lingering illness, and soon came the
end. To her place as mistress of the house succeeded Harvey's aunt, his
father's sister. No one could have been kinder to the children, but
Harvey, for some reason yet obscure to him, always disliked her. Whom,
indeed, did he not dislike, of those set over him? He recalled his
perpetual rebellion against her authority from the first day to the
last. What an unruly cub! And his father's anger when he chanced to
overhear some boyish insolence--alas! alas!

For he saw so little of his father. Mr. Rolfe's work as a railway
engineer kept him chiefly abroad; he was sometimes absent for twelve
months at a time. Only in the last half-year of his life did he remain
co