ating
transaction, so long ago. Hugh asked some of the boys to bring up Lamb,
to shake hands before parting for the holidays; but he would not come,
and wriggled himself out of sight. Then Hugh recollected that he could
forgive Lamb as well without Lamb's knowing it; and he let him alone.

Then there was Holt. He and Holt had parted on uneasy terms; and Holt
now looked shy and uncomfortable. Hugh beckoned to him, and asked him
whether he was really to remain at Crofton all the holidays.

"Yes," said Holt. "I am the only one not going home, unless you are to
stay hereabouts. Even Tooke is to be at his uncle's in London. When do
you go home?"

"Not quite yet;--not at the beginning of the holidays," said Hugh,
hesitating, and looking up at his uncle. For, in truth, he did not know
exactly what was planned for him, and had been afraid to ask.

His uncle said, very kindly, that he was not going to part with Hugh
till school opened again. He would recover his full strength better in
the country; and his aunt had promised his parents that he should be a
stout boy again by the time he was wanted at Crofton.

This was what Hugh had dreaded to hear; and when he thought that he
should not see his parents, nor little Harry, for so many months, his
heart sank. But he was still in the church; and perhaps the place
helped him to remember his mother's expectation that he should not fail,
and his own resolution to bear cheerfully whatever troubles his
misfortune brought upon him, from the greatest to the least. So when he
heard his uncle saying to Holt that he should ask Mr Tooke to let him
come and spend two or three weeks at his house, he said so heartily that
he hoped Holt would come, that Holt felt that whatever discontent had
been between them was forgiven and forgotten.

Phil went home, of course; and when Holt arrived at Mr Shaw's, Agnes
also returned to London, that she might see something of Phil. Then the
two boys were glad to be together, though Hugh would rather have had his
dear friend Dale for a companion; and Holt knew that this was the case.
Yet Hugh saw, and was glad to see, that Holt was improved. He had
plucked up some spirit, and was more like other lads, though still, by
his own account, too much like a timid, helpless foreigner among the
rough Crofton boys.

All the boys had some lessons to prepare in the holidays. Every one who
had ever written a theme had a theme to write now. Every boy who