red face, he declared it was too bad of the man: but
the man was out of his hearing, and could never know how angry he was.

"A pretty story this is for our usher to have against you, to begin
with," was Phil's consolation. "Every boy will know it before you show
yourself; and you will never hear the last of it, I can tell you."

"Your usher!" exclaimed Hugh, bewildered.

"Yes, our usher. That was he on the box, beside coachee. Did not you
find out that much in all these eight-and-twenty miles?"

"How should I? He never told me."

Hugh could hardly speak to his uncle and aunt, he was so taken up with
trying to remember what he had said, in the usher's hearing, of the
usher himself, and everybody at Crofton.

CHAPTER FOUR.

MICHAELMAS-DAY OVER.

Mrs Shaw ordered dinner presently; and while it was being served, she
desired Phil to brush his brother's clothes, as they were dusty from his
ride. All the while he was brushing (which, he did very roughly), and
all the first part of dinner-time, Phil continued to tease Hugh about
what he had said on the top of the coach. Mrs Shaw spoke of the
imprudence of talking freely before strangers; and Hugh could have told
her that he did not need such a lecture at the very time that he found
the same thing by his experience. He did wish Phil would stop. If
anybody should ask him a question, he could not answer without crying.
Then he remembered how his mother expected him to bear things; and he
almost wished he was at home with her now, after all his longing to be
away. This thought nearly made him cry again; so he tried to dwell on
how his mother would expect him to bear things: but neither of them had
thought that morning, beside his box, that the first trial would come
from Phil. This again made him so nearly cry that his uncle observed
his twitching face, and, without noticing him, said that he, for his
part, did not want to see little boys wise before they had time to
learn; and that the most silent companion he had ever been shut up with
in a coach was certainly the least agreeable: and he went on to relate
an adventure which has happened to more persons than one. He had found
the gentleman in the corner, with the shaggy coat, to be a bear--a tame
bear, which had to take the quickest mode of conveyance, in order to be
at a distant fair in good time. Mr Shaw spun out his story, so that
Hugh quite recovered himself, and laughed as much as anybody at his
uncl