“I suppose they wouldn’t fit Mack?”
Tod laughed.
“If he kept those other ‘beautiful boots’ for high days and holidays, what would he not keep these for? No, Johnny; they are too slender for Mack’s foot.”
“I wonder how poor Fred likes his clumsy ones?—how he contrives to tramp it in them?”
“I would give something to know that he was clear out of the country.”
Dashing over to the Parsonage under pretence of saying good-bye to the children, I gave the envelope containing the lock of hair to Edna, telling her what it was. The colour rushed into her face, the tears to her eyes.
“Thank you, Johnny,” she said softly. “Yes, I shall like to keep it—just a little memorial of him. Most likely we shall never meet again.”
“I should just take up the other side of the question, Edna, and look forward to meeting him.”
“Not here, at any rate,” she answered. “How could he ever come back to England with this dreadful charge hanging over him? Good luck to you this term, Johnny Ludlow. Sometimes I think our school-days are our happiest.”
We were to dine in the middle of the day, and start for school at half-past two. Tod boldly asked the Squire to give him a sovereign, apart from any replenishing of his pockets that might take place at starting. He wanted it for a particular purpose, he said.