2/12 I suppose, by your not writing, you are saving yours up for me. Ta, ta, old boy, and _au revoir_ in twenty-one days! Hurrah! Yours ever,--C.N." Tom, in his misery, crushed the letter up in his fingers and flung it from him. If a passing pang shot through his breast, it was followed almost instantly by other feelings of vexation and shame. One moment he was ready to sink to the floor in a passion of penitence and remorse-- the next, he was ready to resent Charlie's influence over him even at a distance, and to sneer, as Gus and his friend had done, at the boy's expense. His brain was too muddled with the excitement and the strange emotions of that evening to reason with himself; his head ached, and his mind was poisoned. |