te I have been, and unfortunate I
expect to be to the end of my days!"

"Oh, nonsense!" answered Ernest. "It is positively wrong to give way to
such feelings. Just rouse yourself, and come and play like other
fellows, and practise your limbs, and run and leap, and you'll soon get
on as well as anybody else. Put yourself under the drill-sergeant and
gymnastic master, and learn to dance, and you'll do as well as anybody."

"Me dance!" cried Ellis, with a doleful expression. "Tell me,
Bracebridge, did you ever see a bear attempt to practise the
Terpsichorean art. I should be very like the monster if I were to try
it. But it is not that--there is something I cannot tell you about
which makes me so unhappy, that I never expect to get over it. Nobody
here knows anything about it, but some day they may, and then I shall be
worse off than I am now."

"Well, I don't want you to tell me," replied Ernest, for he had an
innate dislike to petty confidences. "But, I repeat, come and join us
in our games. Just practise cricket, for instance, every day for a
month or so, with single wickets, and you'll be able to join in our
matches, and play as well as any one, I dare say."

"Oh, no! I've no hopes of myself. I'm sure I shall never play
cricket," said Ellis, shaking his head.

"We'll see about that," observed Ernest, laughing at his friend's
lugubrious expression of countenance. "But I'll tell you what you can
do; you can play a game of rounders. It is not often that I play now,
but I will get up a game for your sake."

Ellis was easily persuaded to accept Ernest's offer. They went out into
the playground, and the latter was not long in finding plenty of players
ready to join the game. Everybody was very much surprised when they saw
Ernest select Ellis on his side.

"Why, Bracebridge, you'll never do with that fellow; he'll be out
directly," cried several boys.

"Never mind; he'll play better than you suppose in a little time," was
the answer. "Everybody must make a beginning."

Five of a side were chosen, and the ground was marked out. Five sticks
were run into the earth, about sixteen yards apart, the lines between
them forming the sides of a pentagon, with one stick in the centre. The
centre was the place for the feeder.

"Those are what we call bases," said Ernest to Ellis, pointing out the
spots where the sticks were placed. Then he drew a circle round one of
them, which he pointed out as the "home."