The evening of the day on which I wrote to London for tobacco brought me a letter from home saying that my sister was seriously ill.

I had left her in good health, so that the news was the more distressing.

Of course I returned home by the first train.

Sitting alone in a dull railway compartment, my heart was filled with tenderness, and I recalled the occasions on which I had carelessly given her pain.

Suddenly I remembered that more than once she had besought me with tears in her eyes to fling away my old tobacco-pouch.
She had always said that it was not respectable.