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The Cold Shoulder, Or, A Half-year at Craiglea
The Cold Shoulder Or A Halfyear at Craiglea Author:Robert Richardson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. HOW FKED HEWITT EMPLOYED HIS TALENTS. ?HILIP'S first experience of his new school had not on the whole been a pleasant one. With Mr. Jeffray h... more »e already felt at home, for that gentleman had a frank way with boys that quickly put them at their ease. But he began to doubt how he was going to get on with his new companions. The little he had seen of them to-day in the cricket- field, did not reassure him. They were a more finely dressed, and he supposed a cleverer set of boys than many of his old companions in Eiverton, but they did not seem nicer or friendlier fellows. Philip was of a candid, trustful, and unsuspicious disposition. A little encouragement and he gave you his confidence. But his nature was a sensitive one too. Easily attracted, and easily pleased, he was almost as easily repelled. He had a warm heart and quick sympathies, which inclined him to be frank and sociable; but when either of these were wounded, he felt it keenly, and became, for the time, shy and reserved. The conduct of two or three of his new school-mates, at cricket this afternoon, surprised as well as pained him, for he could at first see no reason for it. But as he thought over it as he went to bed that night, he concluded that it was perhaps only because he was a new boy, and that new boys had probably always something of the same kind to go through. He made up his mind that this must be the case, and resolved to take things as quietly as possible, and matters would go more smoothly in a little. Let me try to give you an idea of Fred Hewitt's character. By some of his school-mates he was liked in a certain, not very deep, way, by some tolerated, but not greatly respected by any. Those who liked him as a companion did so chiefly because of a kind of drollery in him that was so...« less