"Well, so you have been blackberrying, I see, young men," he said, stopping us. "And you have been storing them. away in other places, besides your baskets; your lips tell tales of that!" and the old gentleman, laughing goodhumouredly, pointed with feigned horror at the still besmeared face of the Scamp, who came running up to join our party just at this moment.

"And has the goat been eating berries, too?" he inquired, with a pleased chuckle, stooping down and patting Billy as he spoke.

"No. Billy has been eating the leaves, though," laughed Harry, taking the words out of Mat's mouth.

"Oh, ho! that's it, is it? Then you have pretty well stripped the bushes, between you; cleared them away, branches and all, perhaps, eh?"

"Not exactly, sir!"

"You've left some for me then, eh ?”

"Just a few, sir,” replied Willie, laughing.

"So your goat eats leaves? Then he is a vegetarian, like me, I suppose?"

"I suppose they all are that, sir."

"I don't know about that; I had one once that was a cannibal."

"A cannibal!" echoed Mat, in a tone of great interest. "Whatever did he eat, then?"

"Can't you guess ?"

"No, sir."

'Why, he used to eat his head off, to be sure!

"Oh-oh!" I cried, drawing in my breath incredulously. "What an awful bung!"

It was out before I knew it, and the next moment I felt ready to bite my tongue out with vexation. The blood rushed hotly to my face, for very shame at the expression which had escaped me, unawares.

But his words had astonished me so much that I had forgotten,

for the moment, that he was not one of my companions, but an old gentleman, and a stranger, and I only a little rude, unbelieving school-boy.

And to add to my discomfiture, Sam went off into a roar of laughter at my unfortunate speech, in which, moreover, he was joined by all the rest, not even excepting Mat, and the old gentleman himself.

"Don't you believe me, then, my boy?" he said, kindly, whilst his eyes twinkled with a mischievous look of merri

ment.

"No, that I don't," I faltered out, feeling goaded to desperation-although I was almost ready to cry—by the aggravating way in which Sam began laughing again.

But seeing that I was really serious, and that the joke had been carried quite far enough, the old gentleman patted my cheek with a kind, fatherly air, though an amused smile still hovered round his lips, as he said, "Ah! I see you have never heard the expression before, as these clever young fellows here have. No, no, my boy, it's only a figurative way of talking-just as a blind man tells you that he 'sees' a thing, which you are trying to explain to him. It merely means that an animal may eat such a lot of food, that it will be wisest and cheapest, in the end, to part with his head, and so prevent any further consumption of victuals; or, in other words, that it is more expensive to keep him with his head on, than it would be to cut it off! So now, in future, I think you will know what people mean, when they speak of anything 'eating its head off.""

"I think I shall, sir!" I answered, emphatically.

And, indeed, to this day, I cannot hear the expression, without my thoughts flying back across the long vista of years that have passed since then, to the memorable occasion upon which this idiom was so impressively introduced to my juvenile attention.

"But I think it is great nonsense for people to talk like that," I said to Harry, as our white-haired friend of the

twinkling eyes passed on his way, after cracking a parting joke with the Scamp about the blackberries; for I felt rather vexed at having been made such a complete laughing-stock of, and wanted, if possible, to defend myself from the charge of having been so easily "gulled."

"No, it isn't!" said Harry, shortly. "Don't you yourself— and every one else, too, for that matter-do just the same thing, nearly every time you open your lips?"

"No, that I don't ! "

"Yes, you do," retorted Harry.

"When? Tell me when? You can't tell me when I have said anything of the sort."

"Oh, yes, I could-scores of times!"

Fortunately for the preservation of the peace, Willie Knowles called back to us, just then, to "come on," for he and Mat were just rounding the corner which brought them in sight of the school gates, and evidently, if Miss Royce had not already passed in, she must be waiting there for stragglers and late arrivals.

"Come, boys!" she cried, impatiently; "how you have all been loitering to-day! I have been waiting here more than five minutes. I shall have to take down all your names, for being late. Willie and Mat, I am ashamed of you; you ought to have known better than to lag behind so."

"Please, Miss Royce," I said, timidly, "old Mr. What-d'youme-call-um-"

"Oh !" interrupted Mat, shocked at my unintentional irreverence; "it was Mr. Whitehead, Miss Royce; he stopped us for ever so long."

"Did he? Very well; then I suppose I must excuse you five, this time."

"Is that his real name ?" I asked, incredulously, as we ran up the drive. "How funny that he should be named White

head, and have such a white head too!"

"Not so very odd," returned Willie Knowles, laughing.

"There are plenty of people named Whitehead, and hundreds of old gentlemen with white hair; and then, though his name has always been the same, his hair hasn't, you know! I daresay there are scores of Whiteheads that are really brown, and black, and yellow, and red heads!"

"Just as a certain little brat, named Ayres, is very fond of giving himself airs," explained Sam, his lips expanding into a broad grin.

"And just as a certain big brat, named S. Camp, always thinks himself such a terribly clever Scamp!" I retorted, in a mocking tone.

"Ha ha!" laughed Willie; "he had you there, Sam!"

But I, fearful of the consequences which were likely to follow such a piece of "cheek," set down my side of the basket, with a sudden jerk that nearly sent the blackberries rolling out, and fled away after Mat, who was running round to the paddock to tie up Billy.

CHAPTER XXI.

BAFFLED.

WE had finished our tea, and had returned to the school-room scarcely ten minutes, when the uproar that was going on in all parts of the room was suddenly checked by the sound of the sharp tinkling of the bell upon Mrs. Royce's desk.

All tongues ceased wagging on the instant, and all eyes turned, surprised, in the direction whence came so unexpected a summons for silence.

Miss Royce had entered unobserved amidst the general clamour, and had passed up the room, unheeded by any but those with whom she had come into actual contact.

Yet now as we looked towards her, expectant and perplexed, we could see at a glance that something or other had happened to annoy her in no common degree.

It could not have been the noise and commotion going on all around her, as she made her way to the desk, for freedom of speech and action were always allowed in the school-room during play-hours; and yet her flushed cheeks and tightened lips, and more than all, the angry look in her dark eyes, told us instinctively that a storm was brewing, and would presently break over the heads of some few of us at least. And who so ever ready as the guilty to detect, upon the slightest suspicious sign, the dreaded discovery of their secret?

Therefore, with a sudden flash of certainty, the conviction

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