“Not this year.”

“No, but next.”

In this contemplation Cecil was silent, only fondling Chico, until Jock, instead of falling asleep again, said, “Evelyn, what does your doctor really think of the little chap?”

Cecil screwed up his face as if he had rather not be asked.

“Never you think about it,” he said.  “Doctors always croak.  He’ll be all right again soon.”

“If I was sure,” sighed Jock; “but you know he has always been such a religious little beggar.  It’s a horrid bad sign.”

“Like my brother Walter,” said Cecil gravely.  “Now, Duke can be ever so snappish and peevish; I’m not half so much afraid for him.”

“You never heard anything like the little fellow that night,” said Jock, and therewith he gave his friend by far the most connected account of the adventure that had yet been arrived at.  He even spoke of the resolution to which he had been brought, and in a tone of awe described how he had pledged himself for the future.

“So you see I’m in for it,” he concluded; “I must give up all our jolly larks.”

“Then I shan’t get into so many rows with my mother and uncle,” said Cecil, by no means with the opposition his friend had anticipated.

“Then you’ll stand by me?” said Jock.

“Gladly.  My mother was at me all last Easter, telling me my goings on were worse to her than losing George or Walter, and talking about my Confirmation and all.  She only let me be a communicant on Easter Day, because I did mean to make a fresh start-—and I did mean it with all my heart; only when that supper was talked of, I didn’t like to stick out against you, Brownlow; I never could, you know, and I didn’t know what it was coming to.”

“Nor I,” said Jock; “that’s the worst of it.  When a lark begins one doesn’t know how far one will get carried on.  But that night I thought about the Confirmation, and how I had made the promise without really thinking about it, and never had been to Holy Communion.”

“I meant it all,” said Cecil, “and broke it, so I’m worst.”

“Well!” said Jock, “if I go back from the promise little Armie made me make about being Christ’s faithful soldier and servant I could never face him again—-no, nor death either!  You can’t think what it was like, Evelyn, sitting in the dead stillness-—except for an awful crack and rumbling in the ice, and the solid snow fog shutting one in.  How ugly, and brutish, and horrid all those things did look; and how it made me long to have been like the little fellow in my arms, or even this poor little dog, who knew no better.  Then somehow came now and then a wonderful sense that God was all round us, and that our Lord had done all that for my forgiveness, if I only meant to do right in earnest.  Oh! how to go on meaning it!”

“That’s the thing,” said Cecil.  “I mean it fast enough at home, and when my mother talks to me and I look at my brothers’ graves, but it all gets swept away at Eton.  It won’t now, though, if you are different, Brownlow.  I never liked any fellow like you I knew you were best, even when you were worst.  So if you go in for doing right, I shan’t care for anyone else—-not even Cressham and Bulford.”