Jeremy arrived, washed, brushed, and obstinate. He would, of course, be scolded to within an inch of his life, and he did not care. He had seen the Dean's Ernest howling and kicking on the ground; he had soiled his straw hat for him, dirtied his stiff white collar for him, and made his nose bleed. He glared at his aunt (one eye was rapidly disappearing beneath a blue bruise), and he was proud, triumphant, and very tired. Farewells were made--again many apologies--“Nothing, I assure you, nothing. Boys will be boys, I know,” from Miss Maddison. Then they were seated in the jingle, Jeremy next to Aunt Amy, awaiting his scolding. It did not come. Aunt Amy tried; she knew what she should say. She should be very angry, disgusted, ashamed. She could not be any of these things. That horrid boy had insulted her. She was touched and proud as she had never been touched and proud in her life before. Jeremy waited, and then as nothing came his weariness grew upon him. As the old fat pony jogged along, as the evening colours of street and sky danced before him, sleep came nearer and nearer. He nodded, recovered, nodded and nodded again. His body pressed closer to Aunt Amy's, leaned against her. His head rested upon her shoulder. After a moment's pause she put her arm round him--so, holding him, she stared, defiantly and crossly, upon the world. CHAPTER VII. RELIGION I Always in after years Jeremy remembered that party of Miss Maddison's, not because it had been there that he had won his first fight, but for the deeper reason that from that day his life received a new colour, woven into the texture of it; even now when he thinks of those hours that followed Miss Maddison's party he catches his breath and glances around him to see whether everything is safe. The children, on arriving home that evening, found that their father and mother had already returned from Drymouth. Jeremy, sleepy though he was, rushed to his mother, held her hand, explained his black eye, and then suddenly, in a way that he had, fell asleep, there as he was, and had to be carried up to bed. When he awoke next morning his first thought was of his mother. He did not know why; she was so definitely part of the background of his daily life that he felt too sure of her continual and abiding presence to need deliberate thought of her. But this morning he wanted to get up quickly and find her. Perhaps her absence had made him feel more insecure, but there had also been something that night, something in her face, something in the touch of her hand.