Why should Uncle Ben be offended because he had simply declined to follow his weak fabrications any further?
This was his return for having tolerated it at first! It would be a lesson to him henceforth.

Nevertheless he got up and went to the door.

The figure of Uncle Ben was already indistinct among the leaves, but from the motion of his shoulders he seemed to be still stepping high and softly as if not yet clear of insecure and engulfing ground.
The silence still continuing, the master began mechanically to look over the desks for forgotten or mislaid articles, and to rearrange the pupils' books and copies.

A few heartsease gathered by the devoted Octavia Dean, neatly tied with a black thread and regularly left in the inkstand cavity of Rupert's desk, were still lying on the floor where they had been always hurled with equal regularity by that disdainful Adonis.

Picking up a slate from under a bench, his attention was attracted by a forgotten cartoon on the reverse side.