able
for further exertion.

"Oh yes, I am coming; but I am most interested about Theo. Theo, you
have got a stain upon your cheek; and your coat is torn, too, as bad as
my---- Well, but he did tear my knickerbockers. Look! I felt the cold
wind, though I did not say anything; not upon the open road, but when we
got among your trees. It is so dark among your trees. Theo!"

"Come, come; I want you to come with me," Chatty said, hurrying Geoff
away; and perhaps the sight of the table in the dining-room, and the
tray which Joseph, not without a grumble, was placing upon it, became
about this time as interesting as Theo's wound.

"We ought to send and tell his mother that the child is here."

"Or send him back," said Minnie sharply, "and get rid of him. A little
story-teller! Theo his tutor! If I were his mother, I should whip him,
till he learned what lies mean!"

Mrs. Warrender looked with some anxiety at her son. "Children," she
said, "make such strange misrepresentations of what they hear. But we
should send----"

"I have sent already," said Theo. "She will probably come and fetch him:
and, mother----"

"My dear, keep still, and don't disturb yourself. There might be a
little fever."

"Oh, rubbish, fever! I shall not disturb myself, if you don't disturb
me. Look here. It is quite true; I've offered myself to be his tutor."

"His tutor!" cried Minnie once more, in a voice which was like the
report of a pistol. Mrs. Warrender said nothing, but looked at him with
a boundless pity in her eyes, slightly shaking her head.

"Well! and what have you to say against it?" cried Theo, facing his
sister, with a glow of anger mounting to the face which had been almost
ghastly with loss of blood.

"This is not a moment for discussion. Go and see to the child, Minnie.
Theo, my dear boy, if you care so much for Geoff as that--; at another
time you must tell us all about it."

"There is nothing to tell you, save that I have made up my mind to it,"
he said, looking at her with that prompt defiance which forestalls
remark. "Geoff! Do you think it is for Geoff? But neither at this time
nor at any other time is there more to say."

He looked at her so severely that Mrs. Warrender's eyes fell. He felt no
shame, but pride, in his self-sacrifice, and determination to stand by
it and uphold his right to do it in the face of all the world. But this
very determination, and a consciousness of all that would be said on
the subject, ga