At his station George leapt for the platform a full minute before the
train had stopped. Up the lanes he sent his bursting spirits flying in
shrill whistlings and gay hummings; slashed stones with his stick;
struck across the fields and took gates and stiles in great spread-
eagled vaults.
So up the drive, stones still flying, whistlings still piping.
II.
Upon the lawn he espied Mr. Marrapit and his Mary. She, on a garden
seat, was reading aloud from the _Times_; Mr. Marrapit, on a deep
chair stretched to make lap for the Rose of Sharon, sat a little in
advance of her.
George approached from Mr. Marrapit's flank; soft turf muffled his
strides. The warm glow of kindliness towards all the world, which his
success had stoked burning within him, put a foreign word upon his
tongue. He sped it on a boisterous note:
"Uncle!" he cried. "Uncle, I've passed!"
Mary crushed the _Times_ between her hands; bounded to her feet. "Oh!"
she cried. "Hip! hur--!"
She bit the final exclamation; dropped to her seat. Mr. Marrapit had
twisted his eye upon her.
"You are in pain?" he asked.
"No--oh, no."
"You have a pang in the hip?"
"Oh no--no."
"But you bounded. You cried 'hip'! Whose hip?"
"I was startled."
"Unsatisfactory. The brain, not the hip, is the seat of the emotion.
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