Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/172

 That did not mean anything to him. He hurried away, shamefaced, without answering her.

And for the rest of his career in school he avoided "guessing."

As a career it was neither long nor brilliant. At the end of his second term he went to work in Simpson's grocery, because he had no money to buy clothes that were fit to wear to school. He never got back to a class-room. Neither did he ever return to his home. He was given a bedroom over the shop, and he ate with the grocer's family, but he lived very much to himself, taking long walks in the evenings and spending his Sundays alone on the country roads. He was a slow, silent, methodical young man. At first he worked as a delivery-boy and general help. Then he was taken behind the counter, and there he found himself a "lightning calculator" again, and he was given the accounts to keep.

He remained in that position more than a year. And he does not seem to have visited his home at all during that time. I do not know why. He does not speak of his relations with his people. But it is apparent that he was pursued by a guilty consciousness of his father's kleptomania, and that the thought of it made him morbid, solitary, and afraid of impending disgrace. I infer this from the fact that he admits he left Centerbrook because of a