taking places, if he chose. Hugh did find it rather fatiguing at first:
but he did not like to take advantage of Mr Crabbe's offer, because it
so happened that he was almost always at the bottom of his classes: and
to have withdrawn from the contest would have looked like a trick to
hide the shame, and might have caused him to be set down as a dunce who
never could rise. He thanked Mr Crabbe, and said that if he should
rise in his classes, and keep a good place for some time, he thought he
should be glad to sit, instead of standing; but meantime he had rather
be tired. Then the feeling of fatigue went off before he rose, or saw
any chance of rising.

This inability to do his lessons so well as other boys was a deep and
lasting grief to Hugh. Though he had in reality improved much since he
came to Crofton, and was now and then cheered by some proof of this, his
general inferiority in this respect was such as to mortify him every day
of his life, and sometimes to throw him almost into despair. He saw
that everybody pitied him for the loss of his foot, but not for this
other trouble, while he felt this to be rather the worst of the two; and
all the more because he was not sure himself whether or not he could
help it, as every one else seemed certain that he might. When he said
his prayer in his bed, he earnestly entreated that he might be able to
bear the one trouble, and be delivered from the other; and when, as the
spring came on, he was found by one friend or another lying on the grass
with his face hidden, he was often praying with tears for help in doing
this duty, when he was thought to be grieving that he could not play at
leaping or foot-ball, like other boys. And yet, the very next evening,
when the whole school were busy over their books, and there was nothing
to interfere with his work, he would pore over his lesson without taking
in half the sense, while his fancy was straying everywhere but where it
ought;--perhaps to little Harry, or the Temple Gardens at home, or to
Cape Horn, or Japan--some way farther off still. It did not often
happen now, as formerly, that he forgot before morning a lesson well
learned over-night. He was aware that now everything depended on
whether he was once sure of his lesson; but the difficulty was in once
being sure of it.

Finding Phil's kindness continue through the first weeks and months of
the half-year, Hugh took courage at last to open his mind pretty freely
to his