"This, I recognize,
is from the headmaster, and the headmaster's an awful bore.
Read him, please; deal with him; but mind you don't report.
Not a word. I'm off!" I broke the seal with a great effort--
so great a one that I was a long time coming to it;
took the unopened missive at last up to my room and only
attacked it just before going to bed. I had better have let it
wait till morning, for it gave me a second sleepless night.
With no counsel to take, the next day, I was full of distress;
and it finally got so the better of me that I determined
to open myself at least to Mrs. Grose.
"What does it mean? The child's dismissed his school."
She gave me a look that I remarked at the moment; then, visibly,
with a quick blankness, seemed to try to take it back.
"But aren't they all--?"
"Sent home--yes. But only for the holidays. Miles may never go
back at all."
Consciously, under my attention, she reddened. "They won't take him?"
"They absolutely decline."
At this she raised her eyes, which she had turned from me;
I saw them fill with good tears. "What has he done?"
I hesitated; then I judged best simply to hand her my letter--
which, however, had the effect of making her, without taking it,
simply put her hands behind her. She shook her head sadly.
"Such things are not for me, miss."
My counselor couldn't read! I winced at my mistake, which I
attenuated as I could, and opened my letter again to repeat it
to her; then, faltering in the act and folding it up once more,
I put it back in my pocket.
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