dertaking anything so new to him as work out of school.
Hugh hurried him on to a decision.

"Do choose the papering," urged Hugh. "I can help you in that, I do
believe. I can walk that little way, to widow Murray's; and I can paste
the paper. Widow Murray will show you how to do it; and it is very
easy, if you once learn to join the pattern. I found that, when I
helped to paper the nursery closet at home."

"It is an easy pattern to join," said Mr Tooke.

"There now! And that is the chief thing. If you do the library books,
I cannot help you, you know. And remember, you will have two miles to
walk each way; four miles a-day in addition to the work."

"He can sleep at Crofton, if he likes," said Mr Tooke.

"That would be a queer way of staying at uncle Shaw's," observed Hugh.

"Then there is copying the rules," said Holt. "I might do that here;
and you might help me, if you liked."

"Dull work!" exclaimed Hugh. "Think of copying the same rules three or
four times over! And then, if you make mistakes, if you do not write
clearly, where is your half-crown? I don't mean that I would not help
you, but it would be the dullest work of all."

Mr Tooke sat patiently waiting till Holt had made up his mind. He
perceived something that never entered Hugh's mind: that Holt's pride
was hurt at the notion of doing workman's work. He wrote on a slip of
paper these few words, and pushed them across the table to Holt, with a
smile:--

"No debtor's hands are clean, however white they be: Who digs and pays
his way--the true gentleman is he."

Holt coloured as he read, and immediately said that he chose the
papering job. Mr Tooke rose, tossed the slip of paper into the fire,
buttoned up his coat, and said that he should let widow Murray know that
a workman would wait upon her the next morning, and that she must have
her paste and brushes and scissors ready.

"And a pair of steps," said Hugh, with a sigh.

"Steps, of course," replied Mr Tooke. "You will think it a pretty
paper, I am sure."

"But, sir, she must quite understand that she is not at all obliged to
us,--that is, to me," said Holt.

"Certainly. You will tell her so yourself, of course."

Here again Holt's pride was hurt; but the thought of being out of
Meredith's power sustained him.

When Mr Tooke was gone, Hugh said to his companion,--

"I do not want you to tell me what Mr Tooke wrote on that paper that he
burned. I only want to know whethe