"Don"t knock yourself up, that"s all," says Reginald, "especially now cricket"s beginning. We ought to turn out a good eleven with four old Wilderhams to give it a backbone, eh?"
And at the signal the four chums somehow get together in a corner, and the talk flies off to the old schooldays, and the battles and triumphs of the famous Wilderham Close.
Meanwhile Booms and Miss Crisp whisper very confidentially together in another corner. What they talk about no one can guess. It may be collars, or it may be four-roomed cottages, or it may be only the weather. Whatever it is, Booms"s doleful face relaxes presently into a solemn smile, and Miss Crisp goes over and sits by Mrs Cruden, who puts her arm round the blushing girl and kisses her in a very motherly way on the forehead. It is a curious piece of business altogether, and it is just as well the four young men are too engrossed in football and cricket to notice it, and that Gedge and Waterford find their whole attention occupied by the contents of the little bookcase in the corner to have eyes for anything else.
"Jolly lot of books you"ve got," says Waterford, when presently the little groups break up and the big circle forms again. "I always think they are such nice furniture in a room, don"t you, Mrs Cruden?"
"Yes, I do," says Mrs Cruden; "especially when they are all old friends."
"Some of these seem older friends than others," says Waterford, pointing to a corner where several unbound tattered works break the ranks of green-cloth gilt-lettered volumes. "Look at this weatherbeaten little fellow, for instance, a bit of a _Pilgrim"s Progress_. That must be a very poor relation; surely you don"t count him in?"
"Don"t I," says Reginald, taking the book in his hands, and speaking in a tone which makes every one look up at him. "This little book is worth more to me than all the rest put together."
And as he bends his head over the precious little relic, and turns its well-thumbed pages one by one, he forgets where he is, or who is looking on. And a tear steals into his eyes as his mind flies far away to a little green grave in the north country over which the soft breezes of spring play lovingly, and seem to whisper in a voice he knows and loves to remember--"Come there too, guv"nor."
THE END.