“I believe it was; they don’t seem like my own.”
He shivered. “They had got into my head too much; my ears sang like the roaring of the sea, and I thought my feet were frozen on to an iceberg: then came darkness, and sea monsters, and drowning--it was too horrid!” and his face expressed all, and more than all, he said. “But ‘tis a quarter to seven--we must go,” said he, with a long yawn, and rubbing his eyes. “You are sure they are right, Ethel? Harry, come along.”
Ethel thought those verses ought to make a sensation, but all that came of them was a Quam optime, and when she asked Norman if no special notice had been taken of them, he said, in his languid way, “No; only Dr. Hoxton said they were better than usual.”
Ethel did not even have the satisfaction of hearing that Mr. Wilmot, happening to meet Dr. May, said to him, “Your boy has more of a poet in him than any that has come in my way. He really sometimes makes very striking verses.”
Richard watched for an opportunity of speaking to Harry, which did not at once occur, as the boy spent very little of his time at home, and, as if by tacit consent, he and Norman came in later every evening. At last, on Thursday, in the additional two hours’ leisure allowed to the boys, when the studious prepared their tasks, and the idle had some special diversion, Richard encountered him running up to his own room to fetch a newly-invented instrument for projecting stones.
“I’ll walk back to school with you,” said Richard. “I mean to run,” returned Harry.
“Is there so much hurry?” said Richard. “I am sorry for it, for I wanted to speak to you, Harry; I have something to show you.”
His manner conveyed that it related to their mother, and the sobering effect was instantaneous. “Very well,” said he, forgetting his haste. “I’ll come into your room.”
The awe-struck, shy, yet sorrowful look on his rosy face showed preparation enough, and Richard’s only preface was to say, “It is a bit of a letter that she was in course of writing to Aunt Flora, a description of us all. The letter itself is gone, but here is a copy of it. I thought you would like to read what relates to yourself.”
Richard laid before him the sheet of notepaper on which this portion of the letter was written, and left him alone with it, while he set out on the promised walk with Ethel.