“Bless you, no!” said Harry, who regarded Ethel’s attainments as something contraband. “D’ye think I could tell? No, that’s the only pity, that he can’t hear it; but, after all, I don’t care for anything he does, now I know he has shown up a girl’s verses.”
“Are these verses of poor Ethel’s safe at home?”
“Yes, I took care of that. Mind you don’t tell anyone, Margaret; I never told even Norman.”
“But all your school-fellows aren’t like these? You have Hector Ernescliffe.”
“He’s a nice fellow enough, but he is little, and down in the school. ‘Twould be making a fourth form of myself to be after him. The fact is, Margaret, they are a low, ungentlemanly lot just now, about sixth and upper fifth form,” said Harry, lowering his voice into an anxious confidential tone; “and since Norman has been less amongst them, they’ve got worse; and you see, now home is different, and he isn’t like what he was, I’m thrown on them, and I want to get out of it. I didn’t know that was it before, but Richard showed me what set me on thinking of it, and I see she knew all about it.”
“That she did! There is a great deal in what you say, Harry, but you know she thought nothing would be of real use but changing within. If you don’t get a root of strength in yourself, your ship will be no better to you than school—there will be idle midshipmen as well as idle school-boys.”
“Yes, I know,” said Harry; “but do you think papa will consent? She would not have minded.”
“I can’t tell. I should think he would; but if any scheme is to come to good, it must begin by your telling him of the going out shooting.”
Harry sighed. “I’d have done it long ago if she was here,” he said. “I never did anything so bad before without telling, and I don’t like it at all. It seems to come between him and me when I wish him good-night.”
“Then, Harry, pray do tell him. You’ll have no comfort if you don’t.”