Freddy kissed his mother, and then ran upstairs after Mary, and in a very few minutes they were walking along the country road together, Mary with elastic graceful step, and Freddy half walking, half running by her side.
The brother and sister were overflowing with health and spirits on this clear wintry day, and stepped quickly on till they drew near their destination; then Freddy subsided into a more sober pace. The first visit to a new school has rather a depressing influence upon the boyish feelings at eight years old. Freddy's manner excited Mary's sympathy, it was therefore with a very demure look that she led her little brother to the entrance and knocked.
As they stood waiting for admission several boys older than Freddy entered the gate, and passed round the house by a side way to the schoolroom entrance. Of course such a proceeding would have been at that moment too trying for Freddy's nerves, but he cast furtive, inquiring glances at his future schoolfellows, which they returned fearlessly and with interest.
So intent was the child that the opening of the door startled him, and he did not quite recover till he found himself alone with Mary in the drawing-room of Englefield Grange. How often in after years Mary recalled that visit! and how little she anticipated, as she stood admiring the prospect which had so attracted her mother, that its consequences would be interwoven with the whole thread of her future life!
Mrs. Armstrong had been unwilling to send her boy too soon after the close of the Christmas holidays. More than a week had passed, and yet the boarders were returning rather slowly.
"School is all very well," they argued, "in summer, when we can have cricket and games in the playground till bedtime." And we are quite willing to own that winter evenings at school are a trial to a boy who compares them with the warm carpeted parlour, the blazing fire, and the freedom of home, with no lessons to learn.
The arrangements at Dr. Halford's in winter were, however, very homelike. The boys sat on winter evenings in a comfortable class-room, with two fireplaces, not stoves, in which genial fires, protected by wire guards, blazed pleasantly, and large gas burners increased the warmth and created light and cheerfulness.
Still, during the first week or two after the holidays the restless boy-spirit often rebelled against the necessary restraint, without which or the presence of a master the room would very soon have become a modern Babel, or something worse, in noise and tumult.
On this Monday morning Mrs. Halford was busy in the dormitory, arranging, with the assistance of the wardrobe-keeper, the clothes of those boys who had arrived during the preceding week.
The door opened hastily, and Kate Marston entered. Mrs. Halford has changed very little since we saw her at the tea-table some years before, listening to Dr. Mason's letter. She looked up hastily and smiled as her niece said, "Aunt, is the key of the wardrobe room in your key-basket? I cannot find it anywhere." She advanced to the table on which the basket lay, and began to turn over the contents.