"It's the pain--awake all night, and the lessons. I can't make them
attend; they learn nothing. They're not afraid of me--they hate me.
I've never really known children before--"

He did not know what to say. Had it been Mary or Helen the formula
would have been simple. He moved his legs restlessly one against the
other.

Miss Jones went on:

"And now, of course, I must go. It's quite impossible for me to stay
when I manage so badly--" She looked up and suddenly realised that
it was truly Jeremy. "You're only a little boy, but you know very
well that I can't manage you. And then where am I to go to? No one
will take me after I've been such a failure."

The colour stole into his cheeks. He was immensely proud. No grown-
up person had ever before spoken to him as though he was himself a
grown-up person--always laughing at him like Uncle Samuel, or
talking down to him like Aunt Amy, or despising him like Mr.
Jellybrand. But Miss Jones appealed to him simply as one grown-up to
another. Unfortunately he did not in the least know what to say. The
only thing he could think of at the moment was: "You can have my
handkerchief, if you like. It's pretty clean--"

But she went on: "If my brother had been alive he would have advised
me. He was a splendid man. He rowed in his college boat when he was
at Cambridge, but that, of course, was forty years ago. He could
keep children in order. I thought it would be so easy. Perhaps if my
health had been better it wouldn't have been so hard."