d. He was going to be put, as it
were, on trial, and the charge against him was a difficult one to
disprove.

Being a half-holiday, prayers were read at the end of morning-school.
And now the time was come. Harry walked to Mr Prichard's desk, who
conducted him at once across the room to Dr Palmer. The latter looked
over his spectacles, surprised. Indeed, Harry had always been one of
the "model boys."

"What is the matter, Mr Prichard?" he inquired. "Has Campbell been
misbehaving himself?"

"Yesterday morning, sir," answered Mr Prichard, "during the
examination, I detected Campbell deliberately looking over Egerton's
paper, who you know at present stands next to him in class."

"No, sir, indeed I wasn't," burst in Harry.

"Silence, sir!" sharply said Dr Palmer.

"Had this been all," resumed Mr Prichard, "I should have punished him
myself, severely, without troubling you; but, in the afternoon, as I
was collecting the papers, and passing close by Campbell's desk, which
was open at the time, I found this book in it," and he handed the
delectus-crib. "And Campbell says--"

"It isn't mine, sir!" pleaded Harry. "Some one must have put it there!"

"Silence, sir!" said Dr Palmer, sharply again. "You will have to
answer presently. Well, Mr Prichard?"

"Campbell makes the matter, as I told him, far worse by persistently
denying that he is the owner of the book. And yet his name is in it."

"Campbell," said Dr Palmer, gravely, "this is a most serious charge
against you. I had always thought you were an honourable boy. You
always have been very industrious, and your work has been well done, as
I hear; but this matter alters the whole case. It shows how one can be
deceived in a boy."

As he paused a moment, Harry broke in with the same denials he had used
before. He could not yet bring himself to try his last resource of
affirming who was the rightful owner of the book, and he feared even
that would but make his case worse.

"Go into my study, and wait till I come," added Dr Palmer.

And Harry, knowing what that meant, went away trembling; for no boy on
the eve, or in the midst of, a caning, feels much consolation in a
consciousness of his innocence.

How he got to Dr Palmer's study he knew not. The playground seemed so
very long, and the boys who crowded to watch him pass, to have doubled
or trebled their number. And he was almost glad, if such a feeling is
compatible with his position, when he rea