part, was not in the least excited, or rude, or pert, when she found
the black-haired gentleman in her mother's drawing-room.

Our friends could come when they liked to Mr. Lambert's house, and stay
as long as they chose; and, one day, he of the golden locks was sitting
on a couch there, in an attitude of more than ordinary idleness and
despondency, when who should come down to him but Miss Hetty? I say it
was a most curious thing (though the girls would have gone to the rack
rather than own any collusion), that when Harry called, Hetty appeared;
when George arrived, Theo somehow came; and so, according to the usual
dispensation, it was Miss Lambert, junior, who now arrived to entertain
the younger Virginian.

After usual ceremonies and compliments we may imagine that the lady says
to the gentleman:

"And pray, sir, what makes your honour look so glum this morning?"

"Ah, Hetty!" says he, "I have nothing else to do but to look glum. I
remember when we were boys--and I a rare idle one, you may be sure--I
would always be asking my tutor for a holiday, which I would pass very
likely swinging on a gate, or making ducks and drakes over the pond, and
those do-nothing days were always the most melancholy. What have I got
to do now from morning till night?"

"Breakfast, walk--dinner, walk--tea, supper, I suppose; and a pipe of
your Virginia," says Miss Hetty, tossing her head.

"I tell you what, when I went back with Charley to the Chartreux,
t'other night, I had a mind to say to the master, 'Teach me, sir. Here's
a boy knows a deal more Latin and Greek, at thirteen, than I do, who
am ten years older. I have nothing to do from morning till night, and I
might as well go to my books again, and see if I can repair my idleness
as a boy.' Why do you laugh, Hetty?"

"I laugh to fancy you at the head of a class, and called up by the
master!" cries Hetty.

"I shouldn't be at the head of the class," Harry says, humbly. "George
might be at the head of any class, but I am not a bookman, you see; and
when I was young neglected myself, and was very idle. We would not let
our tutors cane us much at home, but, if we had, it might have done me
good."

Hetty drubbed with her little foot, and looked at the young man sitting
before her--strong, idle, melancholy.

"Upon my word, it might do you good now!" she was minded to say. "What
does Tom say about the caning at school? Does his account of it set you
longing for it, pray?" she aske