Did it betoken mortification, or what new excitement?

We knew that we could not hear decisive tidings of the scholarship that evening. The examiners would take a day or two to consider the merits of the different candidates before declaring their decision. To be assured that Hilary had done well was all the satisfaction we had any right to expect.

It was a lecture night; and as my father was later than usual in coming home we sat down at once to the tea-table. Hilary gratified my mother by eating with his usual schoolboy appetite. Charlie drank large draughts of tea, and played with his spoon. My father soon pushed his plate and cup from him, rose from the table, collected his books, and walked to the door; then he turned, came back, and stood for a minute or two opposite Hilary, looking at him. "Hilary, my boy," he said, "it is better that you should not be kept in suspense; I have heard what the decision of the examiners is likely to be; You have done your best; I am satisfied with you; but you have failed again. Mr. Carr, the youngest of the examiners, my late pupil, told me before I left the school that, though you had done better than any of the candidates of your own age, he and his coadjutors

considered that there was one among the younger scholars to whom they should feel obliged to give the first place. It is Charlie who has won the prize!"

I was prepared, but my mother and Nesta were not; they both burst out in exclamations that sounded very like indignation against Charlie. He had jumped up when my father spoke, quite white and trembling, and there was real pain in the tone of his voice when it rose above theirs. "Mamma, Nesta, Hilary, I could not help it! I did not mean—"

My father raised his hand and hushed them all. "Charlie was bound to do his best," he said, rather sternly. "I consider his success an accident; not owing to any superior diligence on his part, but to the unusual course one of the examiners took in his questions. He happened to draw out precisely the sort of knowledge and ability Charlie has. I am sorry, for his sake, that he has succeeded so soon and so easily; it will not be an advantage to him in the end. Now I must go. Hilary, my boy, I know you too well to think it needful to remind you in what spirit disappointment ought to be borne." In passing round the table my father put his hand for an instant on Hilary's head-a most unusual mark of favour with him-and then he left us.

For a minute or two after the door shut behind him we were all silent. Charlie, who was trembling so that he could hardly stand, sat down, and dropped his face in his hands. We none of us knew what to say to him; we could not congratulate him; and yet, after my father's reproof, we dare not do anything else.

Hilary looked appealingly at my mother, and then crossed the room and put his arm round Charlie's shoulder. "It is all right; what is the matter, Charlie?" he said.

At the touch of Hilary's hand, Charlie lifted up his head, but the glance he got at Hilary's face overcame the last remnant of his self-control; nothing but flight could save him from the disgrace of being seen crying. He shook himself free, and dashed out of the room; the next minute the slamming of the bedroom door shook the house.

My mother gave a great sigh, and began to arrange the cups and saucers in the tea-tray. Hilary went to the book-shelf, and took down a book. He held it before him for about half an hour without turning a leaf, while my mother, on the other side of the fireplace, sat wiping away slow tears that trickled silently down her face. Hilary felt each one, I knew.

I saw that he was bracing himself up for some effort. Any expression of feeling was an effort to him. I quite understood what a conquest he had made over himself when he got up, and, kneeling down by the side of my mother's chair, said gently, "Mother, let us talk it over together."

My mother threw both her arms round his neck and uttered a sort of cry, as if some long pent-up feeling had found vent at last. "Oh, Hilary, it is not this that troubles me so; it is not anything you have done. But I have had so many things to grieve me. You are my eldest, and I had planned so for you. When anything goes wrong with you, it brings it all back-all that I have suffered all my altered life. Oh, it seems so long and so sad, sometimes, Hilary." This was almost in a whisper.

Hilary made no answer, but he drew a little nearer, so as to make his strong young shoulder a more comfortable support for my mother's drooping head. He did not look like a schoolboy any longer. In that effort to rise out of his habitual reserve, he had taken his place once for all as the eldest son of the house, and my mother clung to him as she had never clung to any one before; finding, in her silent, coldmannered eldest son, the support she had so long

wanted-a person she could lean upon, and yet not be in the least afraid of. I suppose her father had been this to her, and she had wanted him till, on that night, Hilary took his place. When I had looked once at Hilary and my mother, I felt as if I ought to leave them. I was not wanted; and they would talk, when the time came for talking, better alone. Nesta had slipped out of the room while Hilary had been pretending to read. I followed her to Charlie's bedroom. I should not have been welcome there half an hour ago. Nesta was Charlie's chosen confidant when he was in trouble, but by this time his tears were all wept away. I heard his voice in rather eager talk before I entered the room.

"Is that you, Janet?" he said, sitting upright in his bed, where he had been lying when I came in. "What is going on downstairs? What is Hilary doing?"

"Talking to mamma.

"How does he look?"

"Just as usual."

Ah, what a comfort it is that he does not feel things as I do! He does not, now does he, Janet?"

"No, not as you do."