e.

"Oh, I say, you are pretty," he said. "Ten times as pretty as Miss
Hippetts on Sundays."

"Hah! yes. Never mind about Miss Hippetts. And look here, my man, Mr
Hippetts said that you were anything but a good boy, and your
schoolmaster said the same."

"Yes; everybody knows that I am a reg'lar bad boy. The worst boy in the
whole school."

Helen Grayson's face contracted.

"Oh, you are, are you!" said the doctor drily.

"Yes, Mr Sibery told everybody so."

"Well, then, now, sir, you will have to be a very good boy."

"All right, sir."

"And behave yourself very nicely."

"But, I say: am I going to stop here, sir?"

"Yes; always."

"What, in this room?"

"Yes."

"And ain't I to go back to the House to have my crumbs!"

"To have your what?"

"Breakfasses and dinners, sir?"

"No, you will have your meals here."

"But I shall have to go back to sleep along with the other boys?"

"No, you will sleep here; you will live here altogether now."

"What! along of you and her?" cried the boy excitedly.

"Yes, always, unless you go to a good school."

"But live here along o' you, in this beautiful house with this nice
lady, and that gal with a round face."

"Yes, of course."

"Ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ri-i-kee!" cried the boy in a shrill, piercing
voice; and, to the astonishment of the doctor and his daughter, he made
a bound, and then, with wonderful skill and rapidity, began turning the
wheel, as it is called, going over and over on hands and feet,
completely round the room.

"Here, stop, sir, stop!" cried the doctor, half-angry and half-amused.

"I can do it t'other way too," cried the boy; and, as he had turned
before commencing upon his left hand, he began with his right, and
completed the circuit of the room in the opposite direction.

"There!" he cried, as he stopped before the doctor and his daughter,
flushed and proud. "There isn't a chap in the House can do it as quick
as I can. Mr Sibery caught me one day, and didn't I get the cane!"

There was such an air of innocent pride displayed by the boy, that after
for the moment feeling annoyed, Helen Grayson sat back in her chair and
laughed as much at the boy as at her father's puzzled look, of surprise.

"That's nothing!" cried the boy, as he saw Helen's smiles. "Look here."

He ducked down and placed his head on the hearthrug, his hands on either
side in front, and threw his heels in the air, to the great endangerment
of the chim