. However,
he has only three months more at Pentonville, and then he will go to
Portland, Chatham, or Gibraltar.'

'Oh, I hope it will not be Gibraltar! But at least that terrible
solitude will be over.'

'At any rate, his spirit is not broken. I could see his eye light up
after I had talked a little while, and he fell into his natural tone
again. He would not try to put out his hand to me when he came down;
but when I went away, he put it through and we had a good hearty shake.
Somehow it made one feel quite small.'

Ethel could have pledged herself for the soundness of Tom's nature
after those words; but all she did was in an unwonted tone to utter the
unwonted exclamation--'Dear Tom.'

'If my father does not come up, I shall see him once more before he
leaves Pentonville,' added Tom; 'and so you must mind and let me know
all about his people in America. I found he had no notion of the row
that is beginning there, so I said not a word of it. But what is all
this about going to Indiana?'

'They are going at the end of April to settle in a place called
Massissauga, where Henry is to farm till practice comes to him. It is
towards the north of the State, in the county of Pulaski.'

'Ay, in one of the pestilential swamps that run up out of Lake
Michigan. All the fertile ground there breeds as many fevers and agues
as it does stalks of corn.'

'Indeed! how did you hear that?'

'I looked up the place after Leonard told me of it. It is as unlucky a
location as the ill luck of that fellow Henry could have pitched on.
Some friend Leonard spoke of--a Yankee, I suppose, meaning to make a
prey of them.'

'The father of their young lady friend at the boarding-house.'

'Oh! a Yankee edition of Mrs. Pugh!'

'And the worst of it is that this is to be done with poor Averil's
fortune. She has written to Mr. Bramshaw to sell out for her, and send
her the amount, and he is terribly vexed; but she is of age, and there
are no trustees nor any one to stop it.'

'All of a piece,' muttered Tom; then presently he swung the basket
round on the ground with a vehement exclamation--'If any man on this
earth deserved to be among the robbers and murderers, I know who it
is.' Then he shouldered his load again, and walked on in silence by
his sister's side to the school door.

Richard had been obliged to go to a benefit club entertainment; and
Ethel, knowing the limited literary resources of the parsonage, was
surprised to