Page:Stanwood Pier--Harding of St Timothys.djvu/221

Rh One morning after prayers, as the boys were passing out of the chapel, Harry saw a woman in black sitting beside the rector's wife. A certain familiar expression in her quite unfamiliar face caused him to glance at her a second time, and when he came down the chapel steps he said to Joe Herrick, who happened to be at his side:— "Rupert's mother has come."

"How do you know?" asked Herrick.

"I saw her just now in the chapel. It must be his mother. She has the same way of looking at you from her eyes."

He told three or four other fellows in the sixth form; and before going to their rooms for the first hour of study, they loitered by the gate to see Mrs. Ormsby come out and make up their minds if it were really she. They had no doubt when she passed them, accompanied by Doctor Vincent, and turned with him toward the infirmary.

The boys had raised their caps as she went by, and she had swept them with a friendly, inquiring, almost wistful glance, as if she were