re's decision was perfectly right, and the victory thus remained
beyond further contention with the River-Smithites.

CHAPTER III.

GONE.

"Bravo, Clinton! Well done, indeed!" so shouted one of the big boys, and
a score of others joined in in chorus.

"Which is Clinton?" a woman who was standing looking on at the game
asked one of the younger boys.

The boy looked up at the questioner. She was a woman of about forty
years old, quietly dressed in black with a gloss of newness on it.

"I will point him out to you directly. They are all mixed up again now."

"There are two of them, are there not?" the woman asked.

"Yes, that's the other; there--that one who has just picked up the ball
and is running with it; there, that's the other, the one who is just
charging the fellow who is trying to stop his brother."

"Well done!" he shouted, as Edgar's opponent rolled over.

The woman asked no more questions until the match was over, but stood
looking on intently as the players came off the ground. Rupert and Edgar
were together, laughing and talking in high spirits; for each had kicked
a goal, and the town boys had been beaten by four goals to one. The boy
to whom she had been speaking had long before strolled away to another
part of the field, but she turned to another as the Clintons approached.

"Those are the Clintons, are they not?" she asked.

"Yes, and a good sort they are," the boy said heartily.

She stood looking at them intently until they had passed her, then
walked away with her eyes bent on the ground, and made her way to a
small lodging she had taken in the town. For several days she placed
herself so that she could see the boys on their way to and fro between
River-Smith's and the college, and watched them at football.

"I wonder who that woman is," Rupert said one day to his brother. "I
constantly see her about, and she always seems to be staring at me."

"I thought she stared at me too," Edgar said. "I am sure I do not know
her. I don't think I have ever seen her face before."

"She asked me whether you were Clinton the other day when you were
playing football. It was just after you had made a run with the ball,
and some one shouted, 'Well done, Clinton!' And she asked me which was
Clinton, and whether there were not two of them. And of course I pointed
you both out," a youngster said who was walking with them.

"That is rum, too," Rupert said. "I wonder who the woman is, Edgar, and
wh