as tight as
tight, and not say a single word."

"As if that would do any good," said Sylvia contemptuously; "it would
only make him think we had seen him, and make a fuss. However, there's no
fear of Ralph asking you anything about it. You just see him alone when
he comes in, grandmother.

"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Molly, as they returned to the house, "I
shall never understand about tact, never. We've got our lessons to do for
to-morrow, Sylvia, and the verbs are very hard."

"Never mind, I'll help you," said Sylvia good-naturedly, and grandmother
was pleased to see them go upstairs to their little study with their arms
round each other's waists as usual--the best of friends.

Half an hour later, Ralph made his appearance. He looked rather less tidy
than his wont--for as a rule Ralph was a particularly tidy boy--his hair
was tumbled, and his hands certainly could not have been described as
_clean_.

"Well, Ralph, and what have you been doing with yourself?" said
grandmother, as he came in.

Ralph threw himself down on the rug.

"My poor rug," thought grandmother, but she judged it wiser not, at that
moment, to express her misgivings aloud.

Ralph did not at once reply. Then--

"Grandmother," he said, after a little pause.

"Well, my boy?"

"You remember my calling one of the boys in my class a cad--what Molly
began about last night?"

"Well, my boy?" said grandmother again.

"Do you remember what made me call him a cad? It was that I met him
carrying a great bundle of wood--little wood they call it--along the
street one day. Well, just fancy, grandmother, _I've_ been doing it too.
That's what I wanted to stay later for this afternoon."

Grandmother's heart gave a bound of pleasure at her boy's frankness.
"Sensible child Sylvia is," she said to herself. But aloud she replied
with a smile,

"Carrying wood! what did you do that for, and where did you get it?"

"I'll tell you, I'll tell you all about it," said Ralph. "We went out
after school to a sort of little coppice where there is a lot of that
nice dry brushwood that anybody may take. Prosper knew the place, and
took me. It was to please him I went. He does it every Thursday; that is
the day we are let out of school early."

"And what does he do it for?" asked grandmother. "Is he--are his people
so very poor that he has to do it? I thought all the boys were of a
better class," she added, with some inward misgiving as to what Mr.
Heriott might