e exclaimed, over and over again. "I call it
downright wicked of the squire to suspect you of such a thing."

"Well, mother, it does look very bad against me," Reuben said,
wiping his eyes at last, "and I don't know as the squire is so much
to be blamed for suspecting me. I know and you know that it wasn't
me; but there's no reason why the squire should know it. Somebody
has poisoned his dog, and that somebody is a boy. He knows that I
was unfriendly with the dog so, putting things together, I don't
see as he could help suspecting me, and only my word the other way.
It seems to me as if somebody must have done it to get me in a row,
for I don't know that the dog had bit anyone else. If it is anyone,
I expect it's Tom Thorne. He has never been friends with me, since
that affair of the school window."

"I will go at once and speak to his father," Mrs. Whitney said,
taking down her bonnet from the wall.

"No, mother, you can't do that," Reuben exclaimed. "We have got
nothing against him. The squire has ten times as good reason to
suspect me, as I have to suspect Tom Thorne; so as we know the
squire's wrong, it's ten times as likely we shall be wrong.
Besides, if he did it, of course he would deny it, he is the worst
liar in the village; and then folks would say I wasn't satisfied
with doing it myself, but I wanted to throw the blame on to him,
just as he did on me before. No, it won't do, mother."

Mrs. Whitney saw that it wouldn't do, and sat down again. Reuben
sat thinking, for some time.

"I must go away, mother," he said at last. "I can't stop here.
Every one in the village will get to know of it, and they will
point at me as the boy as poisoned the squire's dog, and then lied
about it. I couldn't stand that, mother."

"And you sha'n't stand it, my boy," Mrs. Whitney said, "not a day.
I will give up the cottage and move into Lewes, at once. I didn't
go there before, for I am known there, and don't like folk to see
how much I have come down in the world."

"No, mother, you stop here, and I will go up to London. They say
there is lots of work there, and I suppose I can get on as well as
another."

"I will not hear of your doing such a thing. I should never expect
to hear of you again. I should always be thinking that you had got
run over, or were starving in the streets, or dying in a workhouse.
No, Reuben, my plan's best. It's just silliness my not liking to
settle in Lewes; for of course it's better going wh