These Christmas holidays had begun badly. Jeremy’s mood was wrong from the very start. He had not wished it to be wrong. He had come determined to find everything right and beautiful. Now nothing was right and nothing was beautiful.

For one thing, there was nothing to do. It was not the custom nearly thirty years ago to invent games, occupations and employments for your young as it is to-day. Mrs. Cole, loving her children, had nevertheless enough to do to make the house go round, and Mr. Cole was busy in his study. The children would amuse themselves—who could doubt it—but at the same time there were so many things that they must not do that as the days passed they were more and more restricted and confined.

“Mary, what are you reading? ... Oh, I wouldn’t read that quite yet, dear. A little later, perhaps.” Or, “Helen, you’re sitting in the sun. Go and get your hat.” Or, “Not on the carpet, dear. It will make your clothes so dusty. Why don’t you sit down and read a little?”

Before his departure schoolwards Jeremy had been accustomed to those inhibitions, and had taken them for granted as inevitable. Then in that other world he had discovered a new row of inhibitions as numerous and devastating as the first series, but quite different, covering in no kind of way the same ground. These new inhibitions were absolute, and the danger of disobeying them was far graver than in the earlier case. He fitted, then, his life into those and grew like a little plant, upwards and outwards, as that sinister gardener, school tradition, demanded. Then came the return to home, and behold those old early childish inhibitions were still in force! It was still “Don’t, Jeremy. You’ll tear your trousers.” Or, “No, not now, dear. Mother’s busy.” Or, “No, you can’t go into the tower now. Perhaps to-morrow.” Or, “Once is enough, Jeremy. Don’t be greedy.”

And, on the other side, there was nothing to do—Nothing to Do.

He could no longer play with Mary or Helen. Mary was too emotional, and Helen too conceited. And who wanted to play with girls, anyway? Barbara was rather fascinating, but was surrounded by defences of nurses, mothers and mysterious decrees. Hamlet was his only resource. Without him he would surely have fallen sick and died. But a dog is limited within doors. For Hamlet’s own sake Jeremy longed that they should be for ever in the open. Oh! why did they not live in the country? Why in this stupid and stuffy town?

But then, again, was it stupid and stuffy? Jeremy longed to investigate it more intimately, but was prevented at every turn. It might be an enchanting town. Certainly there were sounds and lights and colours that, now that he was older and knew what life was, suggested themselves as entrancing.

He simply was not allowed to discover for himself—hindered, inhibited everywhere.

Had only Uncle Samuel been here things would have been better. Uncle Samuel was queer and strange and said most disconcerting things, but he did understand Jeremy. As it was, no one understood him. To-day, had anyone seen a small thick-set boy with a stocky figure and a snub nose standing half-way down the stairs lost and desolate, there would be a thousand things to suggest. Then it was not the hour for the afternoon walk, or the hour was past. Children must not be in the way.

Matters were not improved by a little conversation that he had with Aunt Amy. She found him one morning standing before the dining-room window staring into Orange Street.

“Well, Jeremy”—she paused in the quick, rattle-rattle walk that she always had in the morning when she was helping her sister over household duties—“nothing to do?”

He neither answered nor turned round. “You should reply when spoken to.” Then, more softly, because there was something desolate in his attitude that she could not but feel, “Well, dear—tell me.”

He turned round, and as he looked at her she was conscious, as she had often been before, almost with terror, of the strange creatures that little boys were and how far from her understanding.

“I want to go out and buy a football,” he said.

“A football!” she repeated, as though he had said a gorilla.

“Yes,” he said impatiently. “The little ones are only ten and sixpence, and I’ve got that over from the pound Uncle Samuel gave me on my birthday—and father says I mustn’t go out.”

“Well, that settles it, then,” said Aunt Amy cheerfully.

“I don’t see why,” said Jeremy slowly. “He’s let me go out alone when I was ever so small before I went to school.”

“You can be sure he has his reasons,” said Aunt Amy. She suddenly sat down on one of the dining-room chairs and said, “Come here, Jeremy.”

He came to her reluctantly. She put him in front of her and laid her hands on his shoulders and stared at him. He wriggled uncomfortably, wishing to escape from her projecting tooth and her eyes that were here grey and there green. Herself meanwhile felt a sudden warmth of sentiment. She wanted to be kind to him; why, she knew not.

“You’re getting a big boy now, Jeremy.” She paused.

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“And you don’t want to be a sulky big boy, do you?”

“I’m not sulky,” said Jeremy.

“No, dear, I’m sure you’re not. But you’re not being quite the bright willing boy we’d like to see you. You know that we all love you, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“Well, then, you must repay our love and show us that you are happy and willing to do what your father and mother wish.”

Jeremy said nothing.

“You do love your father and mother, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“Well, then,” said Aunt Amy triumphantly, as though she had been working out a problem in Euclid, “you must show it. No more sulking, dear; but be the bright little boy we all know you can be.”

She left Jeremy puzzled and confused. Was it true that he was sulky? He did love his father and mother, but deeply distrusted scenes of sentiment. Nevertheless, Christmas was approaching, and he felt warm towards all the world—even Aunt Amy. Often and often he went up to his bedroom, closed the door behind him, looked under his bed to make quite sure that no one was in the room, then very cautiously opened the lid of his play-box and peered inside. At the bottom of the box were a number of odd-shaped parcels; he picked them up one after another and stroked their paper, then laid them carefully in their places. He sighed as of a man who has accomplished a great and serious task. Many times a day he did this. He had himself unpacked his play-box on his return from school. No one in the house save only he had beheld those strange parcels.