The boys were in Harry's charge for the afternoon, but it seemed that on Sundays they never went for a walk for walking's sake. Occasionally, as it turned out, he would be requested to take them to some children's service; but on that first Sunday, and as a rule, they spent the afternoon in the smaller school-room upstairs, where some strictly Sabbatarian periodicals were given out for the day's use, and only such books as _Sunday Echoes in Week-day Hours_, and the stories of Miss Hesba Stretton, permitted to be read. Harry used to feel sorry for little Woodman on these occasions. He would catch the small boy's great eyes wandering wistfully to the shelf in which his _Mangnall's Questions_ and _The Red Eric_ showed side by side; or the eyes would stare into vacancy by the hour together, seeing doubtless his Devonshire home, and all that his "very superior people" would be doing there at the moment. Harry liked Woodman the best of the boys, partly because he had a variety of complaints but never uttered one. The new master was much too human, and perhaps as much too unsuited by temperament for his work, not to have favourites from the first, and Woodman and Gifford were their names. After tea they all went off to evening service, and after that came a peaceful half-hour in the pretty drawing-room, where the boys sang hymns till bed-time. There was something sympathetic in this proceeding, the conduct of which was in Baby Bickersteth's kindly hands. The young lady presided at the piano, which she played admirably, and the boys stood round her in a semicircle, and each boy chose his favourite hymn. Lennie and Reggie joined in from their chairs, and Mrs. Bickersteth's lips would move as she followed the words in a hymn-book. When the last hymn had been sung, the schoolmistress read prayers; and when the boys said good-night she kissed each of them in a way that quite touched Harry on the Sunday evening after his arrival. He saw the boys to bed in a less captious frame of mind than had been his all day, and when he turned in himself he was rather ashamed of some of his previous sentiments towards the schoolmistress. He had seen the pathos of her pious depression, and he was beginning to divine the hourly irritants of keeping school at Mrs. Bickersteth's time of life. Instead of his cynical resolve not to take her seriously, he lay down chivalrously vowing to resent nothing from a woman who was also old. He seemed to have seen a new side of the schoolmistress, and henceforth she had his sympathy. Indeed there was a something human in all these people; they had kind hearts, when all was said; and Harry Ringrose began to feel that for a time at any rate, he need not be unhappy in their midst. He had still to encounter the master spirit of the place. When all the boys were standing round the long dining-table next morning, having taken turns in reading a Chapter aloud, Mrs. Bickersteth made an announcement as she closed her Testament.