m stay if I don't see them gaining character and
manliness. In another year they may do great harm to all the younger
boys."

"Oh, I hope you won't send them away," pleaded their master.

"Not if I can help it. But now I never feel sure, after any
half-holiday, that I sha'n't have to flog one of them next morning,
for some foolish, thoughtless scrape. I quite dread seeing either of
them."

They were both silent for a minute. Presently the Doctor began
again:--

"They don't feel that they have any duty or work to do in the School,
and how is one to make them feel it?"

"I think if either of them had some little boy to take care of, it
would steady him. Brown is the more reckless of the two, I should say;
East wouldn't get into so many scrapes without him."

"Well," said the Doctor, with something like a sigh, "I'll think of
it." And they went on to talk of other subjects.

TOM BROWN'S SCHOOL DAYS.

_PART II._

"I hold it truth, with him who sings
To one clear harp in divers tones,
That men may rise on stepping stones
Of their dead selves to higher things."

_Tennyson's_ "_In Memoriam._"

CHAPTER I.

HOW THE TIDE TURNED.

"Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide.
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil
side.

* * * * *

Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands
aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified."

_Lowell._

The turning-point in our hero's school career had now come, and the
manner of it was as follows: On the evening of the first day of the
next half-year, Tom, East, and another School-house boy, who had just
been dropped at the Spread Eagle by the old Regulator, rushed into the
matron's room in high spirits, such as all real boys are in when they
first get back, however fond they may be of home.

"Well, Mrs. Wixie," shouted one, seizing on the methodical, active
little dark-eyed woman, who was busy stowing away the linen of the
boys who had already arrived into their several pigeon-holes, "here we
are again, you see, as jolly as ever. Let us help you put the things
away."

WHO'S COME BACK?

"And, Mary," cried another (she was called indifferently by either
name), "who's come back? Has the