When Smith and I slid down the water-pipe a year ago we were comparatively new friends, now we had grown to love one another like brothers.

When the Henniker, on the same occasion, put an end to our scheme of escape, we had endured her persecutions but three months, now we had endured them for fifteen.

A great deal of secret working may go on in a fellow's mind during a year, and in that way the interval _had_ wrought a change, for we were a good deal more to one another, Smith and I, and a good deal more desperate at our hard lot, both of us, than we had been a year ago.
It had been a miserable time.

My holidays alone with my uncle had been almost as cheerless as my schooldays at Stonebridge House with Miss Henniker.

If it hadn't been for Smith I do believe I should have lost every vestige of spirit.