re before him. Perhaps, he said to himself, he might even die, but
this, far from being an end of his troubles, would prove the beginning of
new ones; for at the best he would only go to Grandpapa Pontifex and
Grandmamma Allaby, and though they would perhaps be more easy to get on
with than Papa and Mamma, yet they were undoubtedly not so really good,
and were more worldly; moreover they were grown-up people--especially
Grandpapa Pontifex, who so far as he could understand had been very much
grown-up, and he did not know why, but there was always something that
kept him from loving any grown-up people very much--except one or two of
the servants, who had indeed been as nice as anything that he could
imagine. Besides even if he were to die and go to Heaven he supposed he
should have to complete his education somewhere.

In the meantime his father and mother were rolling along the muddy roads,
each in his or her own corner of the carriage, and each revolving many
things which were and were not to come to pass. Times have changed since
I last showed them to the reader as sitting together silently in a
carriage, but except as regards their mutual relations, they have altered
singularly little. When I was younger I used to think the Prayer Book
was wrong in requiring us to say the General Confession twice a week from
childhood to old age, without making provision for our not being quite
such great sinners at seventy as we had been at seven; granted that we
should go to the wash like table-cloths at least once a week, still I
used to think a day ought to come when we should want rather less rubbing
and scrubbing at. Now that I have grown older myself I have seen that
the Church has estimated probabilities better than I had done.

The pair said not a word to one another, but watched the fading light and
naked trees, the brown fields with here and there a melancholy cottage by
the road side, and the rain that fell fast upon the carriage windows. It
was a kind of afternoon on which nice people for the most part like to be
snug at home, and Theobald was a little snappish at reflecting how many
miles he had to post before he could be at his own fireside again.
However there was nothing for it, so the pair sat quietly and watched the
roadside objects flit by them, and get greyer and grimmer as the light
faded.

Though they spoke not to one another, there was one nearer to each of
them with whom they could converse freely. "