The poet, when the first stun of the blow had passed, had written his grief in the best lines I had ever seen from his pen.
The vicar had preached a quiet scholarly sermon in our friend's memory.
And now all reference to the dead had ceased among us, for the time.
To-morrow, Tommy was to come back from school, and all of us, I fancy, dreaded the first meeting.
We had arranged that each of our houses was to be open to him, and that in each a bed should be prepared, so that, as the mood took him, he might sleep where he thought best.
But the meeting, at the station, was a matter of considerable trepidation to us.
I strolled down the hill to the poet's house.
"Good morning," I said, "I—I am rather keen on running up to town, to-morrow, to see those pictures, you know."
The poet smiled.
"I did not know you were a patron of art," he observed. "I am gratified at this development."