v.J HARRY’S DREAM. ‘ 245

 

a fit of the spleen. I like to hear you laugh: it does
me good!’

‘I am very glad to hear it, sir, replied Harry, who
had now partially recovered his composure, and then
paused, hardly knowing what he ought to say next.

But Eton, although her enemies say that the classi-
cal knowledge which she imparts to her sons is not
always carried away by them in such quantity and
quality as could be wished, and although the mathe-
matical instruction which they receive has been known
to require supplementary care, never fails to teach
politeness to all those whose natures allow them to be
the recipients of this useful lesson. Harry, therefore,
as an Eton boy, was bound to be polite, and he felt
that he had already gone near to commit a breach of
good manners in laughing so loudly at the stranger
without making any further answer to his first obser-
‘vation. Sitting up, therefore, upon the moss, he said
with a respectful air, as was becoming in a boy address-
ing one so much his senior in age:

‘Really, sir, you must excuse my apparent rude-
ness, but your first observation startled me so much
that I hardly knew what to say or do, and it is so un-
usual for us to see gentlemen hanging head downwards
in this wood that I positively could not help laughing.’

“No offence, Harry, no offence at all,’ rejoined the
other ; ‘and I am glad to find, by the readiness and
heartiness.of your laugh, that you were not so much
out of temper with that fellow Watkins as I had sup-
posed. It was a bore, though, I must confess, to be
given “out.” like that!’

. Harry was more than ever surprised now. The old