"Three cheers, again, boys!" cried the Scamp, excitedly, throwing his cap into the air, "Hip, hip, hip, hurrah!"

And then, before the last cheer had died away, he suddenly started "God save the Queen," in a loud, uncertain tone of voice, utterly regardless of time or tune, and wholly ignoring the fact that his knowledge of the words and their proper sequence was exceedingly imperfect. However, no one troubled much about that, and very soon he was warmly supported by the strength of the entire company, though the combined effect, it must be confessed, was decidedly more lusty than musical.

The "putting away" part of every form of recreation is always the least agreeable one, and is, perhaps, especially obnoxious to children; moreover, in this case, every one was anxious to make a start with the proposed works. Still, the return journey must, in honour bound, be undertaken with some degree of ceremony; so the scattered procession was reorganized, and despatched once more to the house. By that evening, enough of the railway was completed to send a train on its trial trip.

Stations, built with bricks manufactured from the clayey earth of our gardens, each with its little doorway and unglazed windows, its roof roughly thatched with rushes and grass-stems, and its raised platform all sparkling and glistening with its covering of powdered white spar, were erected at short intervals along the line. The roadway consisted of a shallow trench about twelve inches wide, the bottom being patted down as hard, smooth, and level, as our spades could make it.

Most of the line was on an incline, so that it was only necessary to wind the clock-work engine up one way, the return journey being performed from the mere impetus of its own weight, without any further assistance.

"What a bore it is that it won't always go straight!" cried Willie Knowles, who had been appointed superintendent of the line, after the train had twice run full tilt into the bank, and had been upset.

"Yes. We should never make the line pay if it did like that often; passengers would be afraid to travel by our line!" said Johnnie Harris, laughing.

"Not to mention the claims for damages which would come pouring in," put in Hugh Marshall.

"And Her Royal Highness would justly consider that she had officially sanctioned the use of an engine of destruction, more wholesale and terrible in its execution than any instrument of torture since the invention of the guillotine," added Jack Smedley. "Hear him! Hear him!" jeered the Scamp, ironically. "That's only to let us know he has been reading about the French Revolution."

Here Bob North's voice suddenly broke in.

He was great on all points relating to machinery, and way was soon made for him, as for some great authority who had just arrived in the very nick of time.

"Let me see!" said he. "Perhaps there is something the matter with the wheels. Why look here, the driving wheels are both bent."

Very soon it was all right again, and Harry and I, resuming our places as joint station-masters at the lowest terminus, commenced once more to ring, and whistle, and to shout out— "Take your seats!" "This way for the North train!". "Train just off!"-and so forth-to our hearts' content.

Presently there was a shout of triumph from a small group, till now hard at work a few feet above the next station, over which Sam and Mat presided.

"The tunnel's finished; send the train up!"

So away rattled the engine and its carriages, racing up the hill, until it came to a slight ridge a yard or so from the tunnel's mouth. Here it rapidly descended a steep pitch, was lost to view amongst the crowd of heads that eagerly touched the ground in order to watch it pass through, and after a few seconds' duration appeared once more on the other side, with just

sufficient energy left to ascend the corresponding incline on this side, and running on at a slackened pace, tilted right over upon a heap of earth, which, for the present, marked the boundary of the completed portion of the railway.

"Bravo! Hurrah!" cried two or three together. "Didn't it go well?"

"Isn't it a jolly spree?"

"Ever so much better than horses, eh?"

"That is just because it's fresher !" replied Sam, who came up that moment, and considered himself personally appealed to by the questioner, though he had really addressed some one else; but then the Scamp was always known to be the most vigorous and untiring advocate for playing at "horses" of any one in the whole school.

"I only wish we had two or three trains going at once,” said Freeman, continuing the original topic of conversation. "How splendidly they could pass at the stations!"

"I tell you what. I'll go shares with you in buying one," exclaimed Willie Knowles.

"All right! We'll go to the village to-morrow afternoon, if-oh bother! there goes the tea-bell. I'm blessed if I should

have thought it was as late as that!"

"By which," interrupted the Scamp, pompously, "you expressly wish us to observe that you are not 'blessed :' for my part, I should never have supposed that you were likely to be!' And then, dodging quickly to one side, he set off running towards the house, laughing a mocking laugh as he sped away.

"We shan't be allowed to come out again afterwards," some one shouted, as the boys began to throw down their tools, and run homewards.

"Why not, I should like to know ?"

"Because we've been making such a mess of ourselves. Didn't you hear Miss Royce say that she would put off tea for an hour, but that when once we did come in to clean and tidy up, we were not to go out again ?"

And, indeed, most of us were in a fine state of dirt! We who had been so diligently engaged in brick-making were grimy up to our very noses and eyes; for all the kneading and moulding necessary to bring the sticky mud into proper form had been executed by hand, and though the result had proved so highly satisfactory, the manufacture had left its traces behind upon both skin and clothes alike.

At tea-time that night, I had finished amongst the first, and as I sat heedlessly looking round the table, my eye was attracted by Mrs. Hughes, who, beckoning at the same time. with her finger, whispered across for me to come and stand beside her. Without turning away from Mrs. Royce, she placed one arm affectionately round my waist, drawing me so close in to her side that our heads almost touched one another.

For a few minutes I stood playing rather nervously with the pendant hanging from her necklet-an imitation in gold of a split pod, with its row of tiny, round peas visible between the smooth shining sides of the shell, which had already become an object of interest and admiration amongst certain of the boys, myself included. Rather to my discomfiture, the wearer, instead of attending to me, after calling me publicly forth, was conversing volubly in French with Mrs. Royce and her daughter; whilst several of the boys, down each long row, were doing their best to make me laugh, by covertly making signs and grimaces behind the shelter of their neighbours' backs.

We always pricked up our ears when we heard French talked at table. It was a well-known sign that the conversation so carried on was not intended to reach us: hence the strong natural desire evinced by every one to catch some stray word or phrase, which should prove to be some clue, however slight, to the mysterious topic then under discussion. Of course, in the majority of cases, the attempt was wholly vain; for, with the exception of a few who from long experience had grown familiar with the words by which they knew that "holidays," of some sort or another, was the theme of the speakers, not one

of us was ever one whit the wiser for our close attention to the conversation. Presently, however, Mrs. Hughes turned away, saying in an undertone, "Then you give me leave to tell him?"

And Mrs. Royce having nodded an assent, she bent her head close to mine, whispering, "Would you like to hear a little secret?"

"Yes, please," I said, shyly, blushing red, for the eyes of the whole school seemed to be steadily fixed upon me.

Then a sudden fear seized me, lest the news should be connected in any way with "Springall Jack," or our clandestine visit to his premises, making my heart beat fast, and the blood rush more hotly to my cheeks, as I added, falteringly," that is, if it is nothing dreadful!"

"Oh, no, it is nothing at all dreadful-at least I don't suppose any of you will think so!" and Mrs. Hughes' face wore a reassuringly amused smile, as she glanced across the table at Miss Royce.

I drew a smothered sigh of relief.

Alas! how frequently the recollection of that stealthy scamper out of bounds rose to my mind, causing me, with the aid of a lively imagination, such bitter pangs of terror and remorse as only the groundless alarms of a guilty conscience can produce.

"What is it? What is it? Do tell me?" cried Harry, clutching the calf of my leg tightly between his fingers in his eagerness to make me attend to him, when at length the secret had been divulged into my highly-favoured ears, and the announcement had been observed to call up a broad grin of pleased satisfaction upon my lips.

"Yes, you may tell him," said Mrs. Hughes, rightly interpreting my upturned look of inquiry; whilst at the same moment I contrived to writhe myself free from Harry's importunate grasp.

The Scamp leaned anxiously forward as I whispered into Harry's ear, stretching right across poor Mat, who sat between, in his eagerness to overhear.