tery. I have not made Edith so
gentle and so good as she has of late been to you. _I_ never advised her
to give up that little room to you nor to send poor Muff away."

"_Didn't_ you? well, now I always thought you did; I always kid that to
you, and so I don't believe I have half thanked Edith as I ought."

"Indeed you might have done."

"Well, I hope I shall not get quarrelsome at school again, but I wish I
was in a large school. I fancy I should be much happier. Only being us
five at Mr. Barton's, we are so thrown together, somehow we can't help
falling out and interfering with each other sometimes. Now there is
young White, I never can agree with him, it is _impossible_."

"Dear me!" said Emilie, without contradicting him, "why?"

"He treats me so very ill; not openly and above-board, as we say, but in
such a nasty sneaking way, he is always trying to injure me. He knows
sometimes I fall asleep after I am called. Well, he dresses so quietly,
(I sleep in his room, I wish I didn't,) he steals down stairs and then
laughs with such triumph when I come down late and get a lecture or a
fine for it. If I am very busy over an exercise out of school hours, he
comes and talks to me, or reads some entertaining book close to my ears,
aloud to one of the boys, to hinder my doing it properly, but that is
not half his nasty ways. Could _you love_ such a boy Miss Schomberg?"

"Well, I would try to make him more loveable, Fred, and then I might
perhaps love him," said Emilie.

"Ah, Emilie, your 'overcome evil with good' rule would fail there _I_
can tell you; you may laugh."

"No, I won't laugh, I am going to be serious. You will allow me to
preach a short sermon to-night, the last for some time, you know, and
mine shall be but a text, or a very little more, and then 'good night.'
Will you try to love that boy for a few weeks? _really_ try, and see if
he does not turn out better than you expect. If he do not, I will
promise you that you will be the better for it. Love is never wasted,
but remember, Fred, it is wicked and sad to hate one another, and it
comes to be a serious matter, for 'If any man love not his brother whom
he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen.' Good night."

"Good night, Miss Schomberg, you have taught me to like you," and oh,
how I did dislike you once! thought Fred, but he did not say so.

Miss Webster's foot got well at last, but it was a long time about it.
The lodgers went away at th