out there was such an absence of any unnecessary encumbrance or useless article, that it seemed made for the wind to frolic in when the windows were thrown open for the daily airing.

The first night that Eustace spent there, he felt some anxiety about his companions. He knew or had heard sufficient of schoolboy life to learn, that it in no small degree affected his weal or woe, whether he had older or younger boys than himself, and so was able to make himself felt or not.

He soon ascertained his companions. Wollaston was a tall, lanky fellow, with a pale face, and hair which, in spite of macassar and brush, would always look bristling and dry. He eyed Eustace and whispered to the next boy; sneered, and then spoke with unbounded urbanity to the new comer. "Shall I help you unpack your traps? I am so glad to have you in this room; you'll be such a gain to our evening meetings. Won't he, Hawkins ?"

This was addressed to a red-haired, freckled boy, with a yellow face; and whose two hands were frequently dipped in some moist brown sugar, which occupied the depths of his pockets, the result of which he disentangled from his fingers by a process with his tongue.

"Got some toffy ?" was the reply, not to Wollaston, but to Eustace.

"I say, you fellows, mother Wallace will be coming round to put out the candles, and there'll be a row if we are caught, you know," said a short, stumpy lad with broad shoulders and short neck, rather nice intelligent eyes, snub nose, thick wide hand, short fingers which you never could grasp when you shook hands with him, (or rather, he never could grasp yours,) whose usual dress was brown, with loose woollen trousers.

"I say, young fellow, what are you at ?"

"I say, look here!" This appeal came from a boy, Algernon Saunders, who had hurried off his clothes already, save trousers, and braces which hung dangling at his heels; in his hand a brush, (for he brushed his hair every night,) but at this moment his brush assumed a distinctly offensive attitude, the object of which seemed to be a little fellow who stood crying by a box, (and in these you have the six.)

"What's your name, young blubberer ? If you don't tell me, I'll break your young head."

Herbert," cried out the little voice.

"Herbert, you ass!" said Saunders, throwing the brush with all his force at the little fellow: it went true to its aim, hit his head, and made a deep cut, which began bleeding. The child fell. Now for it; a scene was got up more quickly than my description, and not for your sake, gentle reader, but because sometimes, opening nights in a school bed-room, where many sleep together, are like this.

Meantime Eustace stood silent. He was one of the six, and what part was he to take? Events determine lines of conduct, and bring out character.

"Oh, Saunders, you bully, for shame," half-laughed, half-snivelled Wollaston.

Serves the little wretch right," said Hawkins. "Brought no cake, little fool."

"Oh, stop your noise; a fellow can't sleep," groaned he of the short hand, Ellis by name.

Meantime Herbert had come round, and seeing the blood had begun to cry outright.

"Then why couldn't the fellow tell me his name?" said Saunders, slipping his nightgown over his head.

Eustace went up to the child, and tied a handker

He had long

chief round his head. He had a reason. since felt a reality in the rule, "inasmuch as ye do it to one of the least of these ye do it unto Me;" and Eustace in all things, great and small, looked to the end, as if it were a fair shore, every hour nearer in sight, as he passed each swelling wave, and he was only waiting his time. His mother's voice, his home teachings, all were mixed up with one Name.

"I can't help it," sobbed out the child, half from temper, half from pain. "They call me Herbert at home, they do; that they do."

Herbert, dear," said Wollaston, coming up behind him; "what would your anxious mamma say, if she saw you out of bed ?" as he looked with a sneering laugh up to Saunders; anything to curry his favour.

"The young blockhead," said Saunders, rolling himself round in his bed clothes, and turning his back on the scene of bloodshed.

Meantime Eustace had got Herbert's clothes off, and was helping him to his bed.

“Thank you, so, so much," said the little fellow, looking up, and sobbing gratitude to his protector. "Don't tell that red-haired boy, but I've got a cake, and you shall have half; all, if you like it."

"What's all this ?" said the shrill voice of Mrs. Wallace, who looked in at the door.

"This will never do. First night-and-what! blood! Eh! blood. Poor little heart. Why, who has been so cruel? I will tell the master. You shall be sent up, see if you shan't, Master Wollaston." Saunders meantime had really or apparently gone off to sleep, while Eustace was standing by the child.

"Master Eustace, who did this ?"

For an instant Eustace paused: he seemed a little

doubtful how to act.

Herbert dropped his hands from his eyes, and looking up to the matron, was on the point of bursting out with the full tale: but Eustace, partly knowing that the result to the child would be fatal, doubting the genuineness of Saunders' slumbers, and partly from an instinctive desire to check the betrayal of a schoolfellow, pinched his arm as a signal to hold his tongue, and said, "It will be all right presently."

"All right presently!" cried the indignant matron, with whom Eustace did not happen to be a favourite ; for his mother being very poor, he had brought but little money with him to school, and Mrs. Wallace's stores, treasured against her old age, suffered in proportion. "All right presently! I dare say; so this is the way that you abuse your authority, and that the first night you have it. It never does do, and it never will do to let boys govern boys. I hate that mollytorian system. But we'll soon see, poor little pet, that we will”—and Mrs. Wallace continued wiping the blood from the wound, and binding it up afresh.

"if you

"You did it," continued she to Eustace; didn't you'd deny it, but you daren't. Well, it's a good thing you don't add lies to your brutality, that's one thing." The others were asleep, or seemed to be so. Meantime Eustace did not speak. If he defended himself he must give up some one else, and he had a strong feeling against this, where it could without sin be avoided.

He tried to reduce his religious principle to practice. To him the Gospel had ever been a clear and direct law, a letter as well as a spirit, and he had treasured up in his mind, "It is better to suffer for well doing than for evil doing." "If thine enemy smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other." His mother had always taught

him to act as if he saw the Figure of Him Whose approval he was to seek moving or standing before him. And this was a reality. It was no mere principle separate from a fact.

Mrs. Wallace was gone, keys and all, swelling with indignation, and muttering of punishment.

"I say, what a fool you are," said Saunders, turning in his bed. Why on earth didn't you swear you didn't do it? It isn't often that we have the luck to be able to swear to a truth, and I'd use it if I had it."

But, however, Eustace had now but one course to pursue, to wait till to-morrow, and be guided by what might arise. Herbert was in bed, his head bound up with Eustace's handkerchief, and soon the little fellow was asleep, having pressed the hand of his friend over and over again, for his sympathy in that moment when it is so dear-on the first severance from home, and the familiar sound of home voices.

::

All were asleep except Eustace; he lay awake. The room was dark, and to him solitary. He was thinking a thousand things, and he was turning over in his mind the various points of his probable duty. He longed to do it well. Duty was becoming almost too conscious a desire with him, and he felt it so. Pictures passed before him forms were printed upon his mind: was he to do a work for that child? was he cast by GoD in his way for some special purpose? was an opportunity now given him, of acting on his mother's precepts, so often spoken of in their scantily-furnished sitting room, in the winter evenings, the one candle casting its dim shadow on the wall;-an opportunity of acting and suffering for JESUS' sake? Thus his mind wandered to home and the lonely figure of one who sat toiling and thinking there; toiling in poverty and thinking of him, and the tears

D