olated, the other party is
justified in feeling injured.

There were no lessons that morning, naturally--another grievance! The
fitness of things required that we should have struggled to the last in
a confused medley of moods and tenses, and parted for ever, flushed with
hatred, over the dismembered corpse of the multiplication-table.
But this thing was not to be; and I was free to stroll by myself through
the garden, and combat, as best I might, this growing feeling of
depression. It was a wrong system altogether, I thought, this going of
people one had got used to. Things ought always to continue as they had
been. Change there must be, of course; pigs, for instance, came and went
with disturbing frequency--

'Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged and sank at last'--

but Nature had ordered it so, and in requital had provided for rapid
successors. Did you come to love a pig, and he was taken from you, grief
was quickly assuaged in the delight of selection from the new litter.
But now, when it was no question of a peerless pig, but only of a
governess, Nature seemed helpless, and the future held no litter of
oblivion. Things might be better, or they might be worse, but they would
never be the same; and the innate conservatism of youth asks neither
poverty nor riches, but only immunity from change.

Edward slouched up alongside of me presently, with a hangdog look on
him, as if he had been caught stealing jam. 'What a lark it'll be when
she's really gone!' he observed, with a swagger obviously assumed.

'Grand fun!' I replied dolorously; and conversation flagged.

We reached the hen-house, and contemplated the banner of freedom lying
ready to flaunt the breezes at the supreme moment.

'Shall you run it up,' I asked, 'when the fly starts, or--or wait a
little till it's out of sight?'

Edward gazed round him dubiously. 'We're going to have some rain, I
think,' he said; 'and--and it's a new flag. It would be a pity to spoil
it. P'raps I won't run it up at all.'

Harold came round the corner like a bison pursued by Indians. 'I've
polished up the cannons,' he cried, 'and they look grand! Mayn't I load
'em now?'

'You leave 'em alone,' said Edward severely, 'or you'll be blowing
yourself up' (consideration for others was not usually Edward's strong
point). 'Don't touch the gunpowder till you're told, or you'll get your
head smacked.'

Harold fell behind, limp, squashed, obedient