essed her son's arm.

"Go up now, then, to Master Pawson's room," she said; "and recollect
that one of the things I wish you to do is to be more studious than you
would be if your father were at home."

Roy nodded and hurried up into the corridor, thinking to himself that
Master Pawson would not like his being so much in his mother's
confidence.

"Then he'll have to dislike it. He has been a bit too forward lately,
speaking to the servants as if he were master here. I heard him quite
bully poor old Jenk one day. But, of course, I don't want to quarrel
with him."

Roy ascended the staircase and entered the room, to find the secretary
bending over a big volume in the Greek character; and, as he looked up
smiling, the boy felt that his tutor was about the least
quarrelsome-looking personage he had ever seen.

"Rather a long half-hour, Roy, is it not?" he said.

"Yes, sir; I'm very sorry. My mother met me as I was coming across the
garden, and talked to me, and I could not leave her in such trouble."

"Trouble? Trouble?" said the secretary, raising his eyebrows.

"Of course, sir, about the bad news you told her this morning."

"Indeed! And did Lady Royland confide in you?"

"Why, of course!" said Roy, quickly.

"Oh, yes,--of course! Her ladyship would do what is for the best.
Well, let us to our reading. We have lost half an hour, and I am going
to make it a little shorter this morning, for I thought of going across
as far as the vicarage."

"To see Master Meldew, sir?"

"Yes; of course. He has not been here lately. Now, then, where we left
off,--it was about the Punic War, was it not?"

"Yes, sir; but don't let's have anything about war this morning."

"Very well," said the secretary; "let it be something about peace."

It was something about peace, but what Roy did not know half an hour
later, for his head was in a whirl, and his reading became quite
mechanical. For there was the trouble his mother was in, her wishes as
to his conduct, and his secret interview with Ben, to keep on buzzing in
his brain, so that it was with a sigh of relief that he heard the
secretary's command to close his book, and he gazed at him wonderingly,
asking himself whether the words were sarcastic, for Master Pawson
said--

"I compliment you, Roy; you have done remarkably well, and been very
attentive this morning. By the way, if her ladyship makes any remark
about my absence, you can say that you expect Master M