gless. Try as he
would he could not keep his mind on the printed page. Nor was it so
much the snowball fight that occupied his thoughts. He was not now
exulting at any victory he had obtained over his foes. He was not even
dwelling on the strategy and trickery displayed by Aleck Sands and his
followers in seeking protection under the folds of the flag; strategy
and trickery which had led so swiftly and sharply to his own undoing.
It was his conduct in that last, fierce moment of the fight that was
blazoned constantly before his eyes with ever increasing strength of
accusation. To think that he, Penfield Butler, grandson of the owner
of Bannerhall, had permitted himself, in a moment of passion, no
matter what the provocation, to grind his country's flag into the
slush under his heels; the very flag given by his grandfather to the
school of which he was himself a member. How should he ever square
himself with Colonel Richard Butler? How should he ever make it right
with Miss Grey? How should he ever satisfy his own accusing
conscience? Excuses for his conduct were plenty enough indeed; his
excitement, his provocation, his freedom from malice; he marshalled
them in orderly array; but, under the cold logic of events, one by one
they crumbled and fell away. More and more heavily, more and more
depressingly the enormity of his offense weighed upon him as he
considered it, and what the outcome of it all would be he did not even
dare to conjecture.

At half past five his Aunt Millicent returned. She looked in at him
from the hall, greeted him pleasantly, said something about the
miserable weather, and then went on about her household duties.

Dinner had been waiting for fifteen minutes before Colonel Butler
reached home, and, in the mild excitement attendant upon his return,
Pen's injuries escaped notice. But, at the dinner-table, under the
brightness of the hanging lamps, he could no longer conceal his
condition. Aunt Millicent was the first to discover it.

"Why, Pen!" she exclaimed, "what on earth has happened to you?"

And Pen answered, frankly enough:

"I've been in a snowball fight, Aunt Milly."

"Well, I should say so!" she replied. "Your face is a perfect sight.
Father, just look at Pen's face."

Colonel Butler adjusted his eye-glasses deliberately, and looked as he
was bidden to do.

"Some rather severe contusions," he remarked. "A bit painful,
Penfield?"

"Not so very," replied Pen, "I washed 'em off and p