“You mustn’t think I don’t feel how good you’ve been to me, Walter,” said the boy, drawing near to him, and taking his hand; “but—”
“Yes, yes,” said Walter; “I understand it all. Well, never mind, I will be a friend to you now.”
A tear trembled on Eden’s long eyelashes as he looked up quickly into Walter’s face. “Will you, Walter? thank you, I have no other friend here; and please—”
“Well, what is it?”
“Will you call me Arthur, as they do at home?”
Walter smiled. “Well now,” he said, “tell me what they were doing to you last night?”
“You won’t tell them I told you, Walter,” he answered, looking round, with the old look of decrepit fear usurping his face, which had brightened for the moment.
“No, no,” said Walter, impatiently; “why, what a little coward you are, Eden.”
The boy shrank back into himself as if he had received a blow, and relaxed his grasp of Walter’s hand; but Walter, struck with the sensitive timidity which unkindness had caused, and sorry to have given him pain in all his troubles, said kindly—
“There, Arty, never mind; I didn’t mean it; don’t be afraid; tell me what they did to you. I saw a light in our dormitory as I was coming back from Percival’s, and I saw something dragged through the window. What was it?”