dearly for your own sake as well as Eric's."

Gradually he grew calmer. They made him stay to dinner and spend the
rest of the day there, and by the evening he had recovered all his usual
sprightliness. Towards sunset he and Eric went for a stroll down the
bay, and talked over the term and the examination.

They sat down on a green bank just beyond the beach, and watched the
tide come in, while the sea-distance was crimson with the glory of
evening. The beauty and the murmur filled them with a quiet happiness,
not untinged with the melancholy thought of parting the next day.

At last Eric broke the silence. "Russell, let me always call you Edwin,
and call me Eric."

"Very gladly, Eric. Your coming here has made me so happy." And the two
boys squeezed each other's hands, and looked into each other's faces,
and silently promised that they would be loving friends for ever.



CHAPTER V

THE SECOND TERM

"Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines; for our
vines have tender grapes."--CANT. ii. 15.

The second term at school is generally the great test of the strength of
a boy's principles and resolutions. During the first term the novelty,