Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/47

Rh School House 'crew,' pulling up the river, and down again, and on home mostly sulky. Once or twice I almost gave it up; but the thought of the good the exercise did me restrained me. Then the Bumping Races came. On the fourth night we bumped Gough's, and kept our place as head of the river for the remaining four nights.

As I was passing through the hall after the last night's races, I saw two or three letters on the end table and, stopping, I don't know quite why, to glance at them, saw one was for me. I recognised Colonel James's handwriting at once. He wrote to me usually in the first week of August enclosing a £5 note, for which I as usually thanked him, in a jerked letter which invariably caused me not a little impatience; for, as I have already said, when I didn't care about people enough to write to them any of my thoughts, I didn't care about writing to them at all. His letter was somewhat after this fashion:

',

July 21st, 18—.

',—A communication has been forwarded to me from my lawyer's, purporting' to come from Mr. Charles Cholmeley, of the Myrtles, Seabay, Isle of Wight, who, I am thereby informed, is the only brother of the late Mrs. Leicester your mother. He has I believe been residing for some time abroad, owing to the weak state of his health, and is, as he is good enough to inform me, by birth an American. He has received from me what information I thought fit to give him about your affairs, and you may shortly expect to receive a direct communication from him yourself. He desires that you should be allowed to pass the first fortnight of your midsummer vacation with him at the Myrtles, Seabay, Isle of Wight, and I at present see no objection to your accepting his invitation; but you are, as far as I am concerned, at liberty to please yourself in the matter. He is, I understand, likely to go abroad again very shortly, having only come to England, as he informs me, in order to transact some urgent business which requires his presence in England; so that, as there need be no further acquaintance between you, beyond perhaps some small correspondence, I have not, as I have said, seen any objection to your accepting his invitation to pass the first fortnight of your midsummer vacation with him. At the