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 IV.

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 uncle having
formed a bad opinion of Bruin in the early twilight, for his incivility
in not bowing to the passenger who left the coach.

After dinner, Phil thought it time to be off to Crofton. He had missed
something by coming away at all to-day; and he was not going to run the
chance of losing the top of the class by not having time to do his
Sallust properly. Mrs. Shaw said they must have some of her plums before
they went, and a glass of wine; and Mr. Shaw ordered the gig, saying he
would drive them, and thus no time would be