'I suppose I walked a bit faster, and didn't gossip quite so much,' said the lad, and he had to strangle a sigh as he spoke, lest his mother should detect it.
'Are you hungry, my boy?' said his mother as he hung up his cap.
'Not very,' answered Horace, for he knew by this time that it was inconvenient for him to have a large appetite, and so he was learning to regulate it by the state of their finances.
'You went in your old jacket again to-day, Horace,' she remarked as she set his dinner before him, for he took his mid-day meal with him to school.
'Yes, I wore my old jacket. Why not?' said Horace. 'You mended it up so nicely that it was a pity not to give it another turn and save the other. Jackets can't be picked up in the street, you know; and though we may sometimes pick wool off the hedges, it isn't woven and made up into boys' jackets.'
Horace talked on in this strain, to prevent his mother from asking questions as to how he had got on at school during the day, for Mrs. Howard knew something of the ways of boys, and was terribly afraid lest some of her son's schoolfellows should find out something of their circumstances, and not treat Horace as they would an equal.
Nothing but the lad's love of science and her desire to give him an education that would fit him to make use of this talent, had made her willing to consent that he should compete for a scholarship that would enable him to do this. It was the first time, she knew, that a boy from the board school had ever been admitted to this exclusive grammar school known as 'Torrington's'; and she had watched anxiously each day, to find out whether the lads were treating their poorer companion kindly and courteously, and thus far she had been perfectly satisfied.
Her elder son was as anxious as she was that Horace should have all the advantages a good education could give, but he was opposed to his brother going to Torrington's.
'I am only a carpenter,' he said, 'and never want to be anything better, but it won't suit those boys to hear that one of their schoolfellows has a brother who is a common working man.'
'You are not a common working man, Fred,' said his mother quickly.