Was the boy really altered, or did I only imagine it from my secret knowledge of his affairs?
To me he seemed graver, more sedate, less angelically trustful in expression, and yet something finer and manlier withal: to confirm the idea one had only to compare this new one with the racket photograph now relegated to a rear rank.

The round-eyed look was gone.

Had I here yet another memorial of yet another buried boyhood?
If so, I felt I was the sexton, and I might be ashamed, and I was.
"Looking at Bob?
Isn't it a dear one of him?
You see--he is none the worse!" And Catherine Evers stood smiling as warmly, as gratefully, as she grasped my hand; but with her warmth there was a certain nervousness of manner, which had the odd effect of putting me perversely at my ease; and I found myself looking critically at Catherine, really critically, for I suppose the first time in my life.
"He is playing foot-ball," she continued, full as ever of her boy.

"I had a letter from him only this morning.

He had his colours at Eton, you know (he had them for everything there), but he never dreamt of getting them at Cambridge, yet now he really thinks he has a chance! They tried him the other day, and he kicked a goal.