They studied, or read, or looked out of the window at
the street sights; and their mother always came back to them with a pang
for their lonesomeness. Bella knew some little girls in the house, but in
a ceremonious way; Tom had formed no friendships among the boys at school
such as he had left in Boston; as nearly as he could explain, the New
York fellows carried canes at an age when they would have had them broken
for them by the other boys at Boston; and they were both sissyish and
fast. It was probably prejudice; he never could say exactly what their
demerits were, and neither he nor Bella was apparently so homesick as
they pretended, though they answered inquirers, the one that New York was
a hole, and the other that it was horrid, and that all they lived for was
to get back to Boston. In the mean time they were thrown much upon each
other for society, which March said was well for both of them; he did not
mind their cultivating a little gloom and the sense of a common wrong; it
made them better comrades, and it was providing them with amusing
reminiscences for the future. They really enjoyed Bohemianizing in that
harmless way: though Tom had his doubts of its respectability; he was
very punctilious about his sister, and went round from his own school
every day to fetch her home from hers.
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