the northward were obscured by a heavy shower, traces of which were
drying off the slates of the school, a square white building,
formerly a gentleman's country-house. In front of it was a well-kept
lawn with a few clipped holly-trees. At the rear, a quarter of an
acre of land was enclosed for the use of the boys. Strollers on the
common could hear, at certain hours, a hubbub of voices and racing
footsteps from within the boundary wall. Sometimes, when the
strollers were boys themselves, they climbed to the coping, and saw
on the other side a piece of common trampled bare and brown, with a
few square yards of concrete, so worn into hollows as to be unfit
for its original use as a ball-alley. Also a long shed, a pump, a
door defaced by innumerable incised inscriptions, the back of the
house in much worse repair than the front, and about fifty boys in
tailless jackets and broad, turned-down collars. When the fifty boys
perceived a stranger on the wall they rushed to the spot with a wild
halloo, overwhelmed him with insult and defiance, and dislodged him
by a volley of clods, stones, lumps of bread, and such other
projectiles as were at hand.

On this rainy spring afternoon a brougham stood at the door of
Moncrief House. The coachman, enveloped in a white india-rubber
coat, was bestirring himself a little after the recent shower.
Within-doors, in the drawing-room, Dr. Moncrief was conversing with
a stately lady aged about thirty-five, elegantly dressed, of
attractive manner, and only falling short of absolute beauty in her
complexion, which was deficient in freshness.

"No progress whatever, I am sorry to say," the doctor was remarking.

"That is very disappointing," said the lady, contracting her brows.