The pride or the humiliation of the boy who has always felt himself to be somebody, and suddenly discovers himself to be nobody, is not of much consequence to the world. It is not of much importance even to himself. In most cases it does him a great deal of good, and he lives to feel this, and smile at the keen pangs of his boyhood. And yet there are few pangs more keen. They cut like knives through the sensitive fibres of poor John’s heart, and the only refuge which his pride could take was in imagining circumstances in which he should vindicate himself--tremendous accidents, in which his courage and presence of mind should avert catastrophe, misfortunes in which he should be the deliverer--the most common of imaginations, the most usual of all the dreams of self-compensation. It was with his head full of all these new complications that he returned--not home, which was the word that came to his lips in spite of himself. Not home, he had now no home. Nobody could call Mrs. Sandford’s rooms at the hospital, home, not even Susie. John’s heart swelled as he caught himself on the eve of using that antiquated word, that word which had no significance any more: and then he thought of Elly under the old pear-tree with her algebra, thinking of him. She had told him to think of her so. A little picture rose before him quite suddenly. Elly under the pear-tree with her algebra! A smile flickered to his lips at the thought. She would be sure to think of him, for she was not very fond of algebra, and, to escape a little from those mystic signs and symbols, Elly would be glad to take refuge in recollections of her friend who was almost like a brother. He thought he could see her under the old pear-tree, with the wind in her hair, lifting the long, heavy, beautiful locks. The pear-blossoms would not be over yet, the sun would make it shine like an old castle with turrets of white. Mr. Cattley would still look over Elly’s algebra and shake his head. Oh, yes, he would shake his head more than ever; for John would not be there to suggest a way out of those thorny paths, and Elly would not make much of them without that help. It gave him a sensation of pleasure, as if he had escaped for a moment from all the gravities of fate, into that cheerful garden, and found a glimpse of something like home in Elly’s bright face. ‘You must find fresh lodgings, nearer to your work,’ said Mrs. Sandford, when she received his report, which was given, it is unnecessary to say, with considerable reticence, and disclosed nothing about the little encounter with Mr. Barrett on the subject of the premium, any more than it did of that imaginary glimpse of Elly in the rectory garden. ‘I am very glad it is all settled so comfortably; but you must find lodgings nearer your work.’ ‘I shall not mind the walk. After the day’s work I should like it.’