bout with a silk parasol! What does a schoolmistress want
with a parasol?"

"She is not wax," said Rebecca. "I rarely use one. And now look here,
Beattie; it is all true, then, about that boy."

"What! Miss Thorne's brother?"

"Yes; Hazel Thorne's brother. He was in trouble, then, in London, and
fled here, and it seems as if the vice is in the family. Why, it is
sheer embezzlement to keep back and spend the school pence. I wonder
what Henry will say to his favourite now?"

Meanwhile Hazel, whose head throbbed so heavily that she could hardly
bear the pain, had dismissed the girls, for it was noon, and then
hurried back to the cottage to seek her room, very rudely and sulkily,
Mrs Thorne said, for she had spoken to her child as she passed through,
but Hazel did not seem to hear.

"I sincerely hope, my dears, that when you grow up," said Mrs Thorne
didactically, "you will never behave so rudely to your poor mamma as
Hazel does."

"Hazel don't mean to be rude, ma," said Cissy in an old-fashioned way.
"She has got a bad headache, that's all. I'm going up to talk to her."

"No, Cissy; you will stay with me," said Mrs Thorne authoritatively.

"I may go, mayn't I, ma? I want to talk to Hazel," said Mab.

"You will stay where you are, my dears; and I sincerely hope to be able
to teach you both how to comport yourself towards your mamma. Hazel, I
am sorry to say, has a good deal changed."

A good deal, truly; for she looked ghastly now, as she knelt by the bed,
holding her aching head, and praying for help and strength of mind to
get through her present difficulties and those which were to come.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

MOTHER AND SON.

"I thought you would have come in, George," said Mrs Canninge, entering
her son's library, where he was seated, looking very moody and
thoughtful.

"Come in? Come in where?"

"To the drawing-room, dear. Beatrice Lambent called. I thought you
would have known."

"I saw some one come by," he said quietly. "I did not know it was she."

"She is in great trouble, poor girl!" continued Mrs Canninge; "or, I
should say, they are all in great trouble at the Vicarage."

"Indeed! I'm very sorry. What is wrong!"

"Nothing serious, my dear; only you know what good people they are, and
when they make a _protegee_ of anybody, and that body doesn't turn out
well, of course they feel it deeply."

"Of course," said George Canninge absently; and his mother bit her lip,
fo