before she died. He hadn't known that she was going to die, but when he entered her room, when he saw her lying so weakly in the bed, he had suddenly began to cry, uncontrollably. All the fortitude, the laughter even, had been hers. And she had spoken to him. A few words only; but they had contained all the wisdom he needed to live by. She had told him what he was, and what he should try to be, and how to be it. And crying, still crying, he had promised that he would try.
"And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes," said Mr. Pelvey, "for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as it is at this day."
And had he kept his promise, Gumbril wondered, had he preserved himself alive?
"Here endeth the First Lesson." Mr. Pelvey retreated from the eagle and the organ presaged the coming Te Deum.
Gumbril hoisted himself to his feet; the folds of his B.A. gown billowed nobly about him as he rose. He sighed and shook his head with the gesture of one who tries to shake off a fly or an importunate thought. When the time came for singing, he sang. On the opposite side of the chapel two boys were grinning and whispering to one another behind their lifted Prayer Books. Gumbril frowned at them ferociously, The two boys caught his eye and their faces at once took on an expression of sickly piety; they began to sing with unction, They were two ugly, stupid-looking louts, who ought to. have been apprenticed years ago to some useful trade, Instead of which they were wasting their own and their teachers' and their more intelligent comrades' time in trying, quite vainly, to acquire an elegant literary
