As the train drew out he looked down from a high embankment onto the
little house his aunt had taken, and where it might be said she had
died through her desire to do him a kindness. There were the two
well-known bow windows, out of which he had often stepped to run
across the lawn into the workshop. He reproached himself with the
little gratitude he had shown towards this kind lady -the only one
of his relations whom he had ever felt as though he could have taken
into his confidence. Dearly as he loved her memory, he was glad she
had not known the scrapes he had got into since she died; perhaps
she might not have forgiven them- and how awful that would have
been! But then, if she had lived, perhaps many of his ills would
have been spared him. As he mused thus he grew sad again. Where,
where, he asked himself, was it all to end? Was it to be always sin,
shame, and sorrow in the future, as it had been in the past, and the
ever-watchful eye and protecting hand of his father laying burdens
on him greater than he could bear- or was he, too, some day or another
to come to feel that he was fairly well and happy?
There was a grey mist across the sun, so that the eye could bear its
light, and Ernest, while musing as above, was looking right into the
middle of the sun himself, as into the face of one whom he knew and
was fond of.
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