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Miss Lomas lived at the other end of the village. She held a Bible class for the Sons and Daughters of Gentlefolk every Saturday afternoon. She did it entirely out of the goodness of her heart, and she had more than once regretted the goodness of her heart since that Son of Gentlefolk known to the world as William Brown had joined her class. She had worked hard to persuade Mrs. Brown to send him. She thought that she could influence William for good. She realised when William became a regular attendant of her class that she had considerably over-estimated her powers. William could only be persuaded to join the class because most of his friends, not without much exertion of maternal authority, went there every Saturday. But something seemed to have happened to the class since William joined it. The beautiful atmosphere was destroyed. No beautiful atmosphere was proof against William. Every Saturday Miss Lomas hoped that something would have happened to William so that he could not come, and every Saturday William hoped equally fervently that something would have happened to Miss Lomas so that she could not take the class. There was something dispirited and hopeless in their greeting of each other....
William took his seat in the dining-room where Miss Lomas always held her class. He glanced round at his fellow students, greeting his friends Ginger and Henry and Douglas with a hideous contortion of his face....
Then he took a large nut out of his pocket and cracked it with his teeth.
“Not in here, William,” said Miss Lomas faintly.
“I was goin’ to put the bits of shell into my pocket,” said William. “I wasn’t goin’ to put ’em on your carpet or anything, but ’f you don’t want me to’s all right,” he said obligingly, putting nut and dismembered shell into his pocket.
“Now we’ll say our verses,” said Miss Lomas brightly but keeping a fascinated apprehensive eye on William. “William, you begin.”
“’Fraid I din’t learn ’em,” said William very politely. “I was goin’ to last night an’ I got out my Bible an’ I got readin’ ’bout Jonah in the whale’s belly an’ I thought maybe it’d do me more good than St. Stephen’s speech an’ it was ever so much more int’restin’.”
“That will do, William,” said Miss Lomas. “We’ll—er—all take our verses for granted this afternoon, I think. Now, I want to give you a little talk on Brotherly Love.”
“Who’s Saint Valentine?” said William who was burrowing in his prayer-book.