'How you keep on with your do!' cried Ethel's spoilt child, with a touch of petulance.
'Why, what are we come here for—into this world, I mean—but to do!' returned Leonard; 'and I take it, if we do it right, it does not much matter what or where it is.'
'I shan't have any heart for it!' sighed Aubrey.
'Nonsense! Not with all your people at home? and though the voice fell again, the Doctor's ears distinguished the murmur, 'Why, just the little things she let drop are the greatest help to me here, and you always have her—'
Then ensued much that was quite inaudible, and at last Leonard said, 'No, old fellow; as long as you don't get ashamed of me, thinking about you, and knowing what you are about, will be one of the best pleasures I shall have. And look here, Aubrey, if we only consider it right, you and I will be just as really working together, when you are at your books, and I am making mats, as if we were both at Cambridge side by side! It is quite true, is it not, Dr. May?' he added, since the Doctor, finding it time to depart, had turned round to close the interview.
'Quite true, my boy,' said the Doctor; 'and I hope Aubrey will try to take comfort and spirit from it.'
'As if I could!' said Aubrey, impatiently, 'when it only makes me more mad to see what a fellow they have shut up in here!'
'Not mad, I hope,' said Dr. May; 'but I'll tell you what it should do for both of us, Aubrey. It should make us very careful to be worthy to remain his friends.'
'O, Dr. May!' broke in Leonard, distressed.
'Yes,' returned Dr. May, 'I mean what I say, however you break in, Master Leonard. As long as this boy of mine is doing his best for the right motives, he will care for you as he does now—not quite in the same despairing way, of course, for holes in one's daily life do close themselves up with time—but if he slacks off in his respect or affection for you, then I shall begin to have fears of him. Now come away, Aubrey, and remember for your comfort it is not the good-bye it might have been,' he added, as he watched the mute intensity of the boys' farewell clasp of the hands; but even then had some difficulty in getting Aubrey away from the friend so much stronger as the consoler than as the consoled, and unconsciously showing how in the last twenty-four hours his mind had acted on the topics presented to him by Mr. Wilmot.