“No—who said you could? But haven’t you any relations anywhere?”
Shivers shook his head. “Only in India,” he said miserably.
“Poor old chap; that’s rough luck for you. Oh, I’ll tell you what it is, you fellows: if I couldn’t go home for the holidays—especially Christmas—I think I’d just sit down and die.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn’t,” said Shivers; “you’d hate it and you’d get ever so homesick and miserable, but you wouldn’t die over it. You’d just get through somehow, and hope something would happen before next year, or that some kind fairy or other would—”
“Bosh! there are no fairies nowadays,” said Fellowes. “See here, Shivers: I’ll write home and ask my Mother if she won’t invite you to come back with me for the holidays.”
“Will you really?”
“Yes, I will: and if she says yes, we shall have such a splendid time, because, you know, we live in London, and go to everything, and have heaps of tips and parties and fun.”
“Perhaps she will say no,” suggested poor little Shivers, who had steeled himself to the idea that there would be no Christmas holidays for him, excepting that he would have no lessons for so many weeks.
“My Mother isn’t at all the kind of woman who says no,” Fellowes declared loudly.