It was _their_ school, _their_ quadrangle, _their_ chapel, _their_ elm-trees; and yet they scarcely liked to inspect them too closely, or behave themselves towards them too familiarly.
One or two boys were taking solitary strolls, like themselves.

They were new boys too--nearly all of them afflicted with the same uneasiness, some more, some less.
It was amusing to see the way these new boys held themselves one to another as they crossed and passed one another in that afternoon's promenade.

There was no falling into one another's arms in bursts of mutual sympathy.

There was no forced gaiety and indifference, as though one would say "I don't think much of the place after all." No.

With blunt English pride, each boy bridled up a bit as a stranger drew near, and looked straight in front of him, till the coast was clear.
At length the bell above the matron's door began to toll, and there was a general movement among the stragglers in its direction.
About twenty boys, mostly of our heroes' age, assembled in the tea room.
Their small band looked almost lost in that great hall, as they clustered, of one accord, for warmth and comfort, at one end of the long table.
The matron entered and said grace, and then proceeded to pour out tea for her hungry family, while the boys themselves, at her injunction, passed round the bread-and-butter and eggs.
A meal is one of the most civilising institutions going; and Dick, after two cups of Templeton tea, and several cubic inches of Templeton bread- and-butter, felt amiably inclined towards his left-hand neighbour, a little timorous-looking boy, who blushed when anybody looked at him, and nearly fainted when he heard his own voice answering Mrs Partlett's enquiry whether he wanted another cup.
Apart from a friendly motive, it seemed to Dick it would be good practice to begin talking to a youth of this unalarming aspect.