arly enjoyment of
those currants which hung in ruby clusters over the walls. Everything
was bathed in the dewy balm of summer morning, and he felt very happy
as, with his little spaniel frisking round him, he visited the great
Newfoundland in his kennel, and his old pet the pony in the stable. He
had barely finished his rounds when breakfast was ready, and he once
more met the home-circle from which he had been separated for a year.
And yet over all his happiness hung a sense of change and half
melancholy; they were not changed but _he_ was changed. Mrs. Trevor, and
Fanny, and Vernon were the same as ever, but over _him_, had come an
alteration of feeling and circumstance; an unknown or half-known
_something_ which cast a shadow between them and him, and sometimes made
him half shrink and start as he met their loving looks. Can no
schoolboy, who reads history, understand and explain the feeling which
I mean?

By that mail he wrote to his father and mother an account of Russell's
death, and he felt that they would guess why the letter was so blurred.
"But," he wrote, "I have some friends still; especially Mr. Rose among
the masters, and Monty and Upton among the boys. Monty you know; he is
more like Edwin than any other boy, and I like him very much. You didn't
know Upton, but I am a great deal with him, though he is much older than
I am. He is a fine handsome fellow, and one of the most popular in the
school. I hope you will know him some day."

The very next morning Eric received a letter which he at once recognised
to be in Upton's handwriting He eagerly tore off the envelope,
and read--

"My dearest Eric--I have got bad news to tell you, at least, I feel it
to be bad news for me, and I flatter myself that you will feel it to be
bad news for you. In short, I am going to leave Roslyn, and probably we
shall never meet there again. The reason is, I have had a cadetship
given me, and I am to sail for India in September. I have already
written to the school to tell them to pack up and send me all my books
and clothes.

"I feel leaving very much; it has made me quite miserable. I wanted to
stay at school another year at least; and I will honestly tell you,
Eric, one reason: I'm very much afraid that I've done you, and Graham,
and other fellows, no good; and I wanted, if I possibly could, to undo
the harm I had done. Poor Edwin's death opened my eyes to a good many
things, and now I'd give all I have never to have taugh