THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE.
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CHAPTER XII.
There was to be a school feast at Dulham. This is a modern innovation, which may be productive of a certain amount of happiness, and is, at all events, well intended on the part of those who furnish the tea and the buns, and the steamer and the vans; but there is always something suspicious, to my mind, in the little shrill hurrahs, which are kept up by the youthful tea drinkers, at intervals during the whole day, to say nothing of their being rather unmusical. It may not be so, but sometimes it appears as if the five or six charitable gentlemen in black coats, and the equally charitable ladies in black gowns, who conduct the festivity, order the cheers, as well as the cheer; and that the hurrahs are des
