"Herbert Watson," cried Eustace, "where are you? quick, quick!"

A sharp cry! and the next instant the poor child rushed madly from the door, through which he had been in vain trying to find an exit, to where Eustace stood.

"There's not a moment to lose," said Eustace, seizing a long towel which lay on the floor; "here, on my back in a moment, and I will tie this around you. There, now hold fast, tight, your arms around my neck, and don't move."

The next moment the two figures were at the window, looking down the giddy depth below.

"The ladder! the ladder!" was the cry on all sides. The tottering ladder, which they had been trying to strengthen, was again brought forward, and leant against the wall as near as it would reach.

Eustace put his foot back upon it, and, with his heavy burden clinging to it, began the perilous descent. But it swerved so much, owing to its vast height, as to compel him at first to step back towards the window.

"He can't get down, he can't, with the young one on the top of him," was the cry of the crowd; "he'd far better leave him, and come down alone. It's only sacrificing two lives to attempt it."

"He won't do that," said more than one, half to themselves, looking up to the window. "He won't do that; so it's no use talking."

Once again Eustace started on his desperate errand, and began his descent.

"Cling

"Shut your eyes, and don't look down!" tight to the sides of the ladder!" "Throw yourself back away from the house!" "Cling tight, young one; don't

move!" were the various cries which met their ears, as slowly and cautiously Eustace proceeded downwards. It

F 2

was God's will that Eustace should succeed; and amid tearful eyes and silent, breathless bosoms, with the ladder creaking, swerving, and bending at every step, they accomplished the tremendous passage, and Eustace stood with little Watson at his back on terra firma.

A burst of joy and ecstasy broke from the crowd below! which was taken up and repeated over and over again, and would have continued a long time, had not the demand for work postponed the expression of their feeling. Watson was carried to a neighbouring house.

The grey light of morning broke upon the room where Eustace was watching by the bed of the child he had rescued.

CHAPTER VIII.

STAPLETON AND RAYMOND.

Boys are always generous, and on the whole pretty fair in the estimate they form of one another; and even the most unpopular boy will often receive his due, if he acts up to the standard which boys themselves have fixed for their decision between good and bad.

The opinions with respect to Eustace in the school had hitherto, for the most part, been unfavourable, yet there had been oscillations, and inclinations in some quarters to change the opinion originally formed. His conduct in the school-yard had naturally done him great good. Boys understand morality, and appreciate it; and though they may not always practise them, the moral virtues of courage, truth, and unselfishness will surely be admired, and, to a certain extent, appreciated. They

find it less easy to understand and value those interior and more sensitive principles which spring from what we know to be true religion.

That new and deeper life of the regenerate does work and thrive in the heart of the boy, as much as it does in the heart of the man. Those deep instincts and teachings of grace, sought through GOD's appointed means and ways, may be objects of suspicion and contempt to those who have long turned a deaf ear to them, and cannot prize or understand them. There is in boys, as in men, an intense dread of cant, and any approach to unreality and mere talk about religion. The boy is preparing to be the man; and as it is surely good that his school of preparation should be, in the main, an epitome of the acts and scenes of his future life, let us not allow ourselves to be led into the error of counting all religion in boys to be impossible or suspicious.

It was Eustace's happy lot at the present moment to have won a high opinion in the estimation of some around him by the exercise of many Christian virtues, while he also possessed that peace within, which he alone can have who loves GOD with his heart. He had shown good courage in the events of the fire-the most generous unselfishness in the rescue of the child; and the effect soon was, that the boy who a short time since had been the object of universal suspicion, was now becoming a hero in the school.

This state of things, however, was by no means satisfactory to all parties; there were some whose plans were considerably disconcerted by the altered feeling with respect to Eustace, and the acts which he had so gallantly performed.

There were none who felt this more strongly than Raymond, and his ally Stapleton. The story of the fire,

and the general feeling about Eustace, must of necessity reach the ears of old Mr. Cleffain, and the influence upon the old gentleman's mind would evidently be strongly in favour of his poorer relative.

Raymond had nothing that he could offer in competition with what Eustace had, with so little plan or intention, done.

Mr. Cleffain was odd in his ways, and there was no telling whether he might not, on the spot, and without further consideration, adopt the widow's son for his heir. Some plan must consequently be immediately concocted, by which these baneful influences might be averted; and how was that to be done? We shall see.

Raymond had been sitting alone. To give him his due, he had many excellent points of character; the better life within him did not forsake him at once, or without many struggles. He had a large amount of generosity, which made him shudder at the thought when he really met it face to face, of refusing credit to those to whom it was due.

He sat with his hand buried in his hair, and his elbow on the table, with three lines of a Latin exercise written before him; he had drawn underneath the lines a mathematical figure, for which even Euclid has invented no title, composed of the most singular arrangement of squares, circles, flourishes, parallel lines, and inverted

cones.

While his hands and a certain corner of his brain were occupied in these operations, another portion of his brain, between which and his heart there was at this moment a considerable intercourse and connection, had come to certain conclusions, such as the following:-"Well, I'm done; that's clear. That fellow Eustace has beaten me clean out of the field. What clever fellows, after all,

those religious chaps are! They are sure to be in at the death-a set of canting hypocrites. Well, but, after all, I don't believe Eustace had any design. He is a good fellow, that's clear. I may not like him, but I always thought him good, and I think I do like him, after all. But then, it is a horrid bore if he gets all the money—a vile bore; but I don't see what's to be done. What a parcel of stuff after all it is; because, if he is a good fellow and deserves it, it is only fair that he should have it. It would be a shame for me to stand in his way, and I won't do it; that I won't. He's an odd fellow-I always thought him so; but he and I have been together a long time, and he has always been willing to do me a good turn, much more than I have been to him; and when six months ago old Cleffain gave him ten shillings for having done his Latin verses well, the fellow divided it with me, and gave me five. I'll go to him, I declare I will, and tell him I'm awfully sorry for having snubbed him so, and that for the future we will be friends. He shall come and work with me in my study, and give me a help or two every now and then when I am in a fix.”

At this good resolution Raymond sprang up, pushed the inkstand over, thrust his hands into his pockets, and dashed down the passage, whistling as he went, to go and see his cousin.

Little Watson was very ill; he was much burnt, and the fright had brought on an attack at which the medical man was alarmed. The child had been removed to the house of another master, and Eustace at the moment of Raymond's approach was sitting by the side of the little sufferer, preparing his own lessons for next school. He heard his name called loudly down the passage, and recognised Raymond's voice; and before he could stop his entrance, Raymond stood before him. It was many