ble to pass
more than two of his examinations. I am certain he would have done
better but for the unhappiness to which I have referred, combined with
the illness of Miss Fraser. In the course of a day or two, he will
return to you, when, if you can succeed, as none but mothers can, in
restoring him to some composure of mind, he will be perfectly able
during the vacation to make up for lost time.

"I am, dear madam, your obedient servant,

"Cosmo Cupples."

Angry with Kate, annoyed with her son, vexed with herself, and
indignant at the mediation of "that dirty vulgar little man," Mrs
Forbes forgot her usual restraint, and throwing the letter across the
table with the words "Bad news, Annie," left the room. But the effect
produced upon Annie by the contents of the letter was very different.

Hitherto she had looked up to Alec as a great strong creature. Her
faith in him had been unquestioning and unbounded. Even his
wrong-doings had not impressed her with any sense of his weakness. But
now, rejected and disgraced, his mother dissatisfied, his friend
disappointed, and himself foiled in the battle of life, he had fallen
upon evil days, and all the woman in Annie rose for his defence. In a
moment they had changed places in the world of her moral imagination.
The strong youth was weak and defenceless: the gentle girl opened the
heart almost of motherhood, to receive and shelter the worn outraged
man. A new tenderness, a new pity took possession of her. Indignant
with Kate, angry with the professors, ready to kiss the hands of Mr
Cupples, all the tenderness of her tender nature gathered about her
fallen hero, and she was more like his wife defending him from _her_
mother. Now she could be something if not to him yet for him. He had
been a "bright particular star" "beyond her sphere," but now the star
lay in the grass, shorn of its beams, and she took it to her bosom.

Two days passed. On the third evening in walked Alec, pale and
trembling, evidently ill, too ill to be questioned. His breathing was
short and checked by pain.

"If I hadn't come at once, mother," he said, "I should have been laid
up there. It's pleurisy, Mr Cupples says."

"My poor boy!"

"Oh! I don't care."

"You've been working too hard, dear."

Alec laughed bitterly.

"I did work, mother; but it doesn't matter. She's dead."

"Who's dead?" exclaimed his mother.

"Kate's dead. And I couldn't help it. I tried hard. And it's all my
fault too. Cu