fter replying to his salutation, and passed on.

"Why, he isn't going there too, is he?" said Chute, looking over his
shoulder. "I hope he isn't. No, I don't--hope he is. Why am I not
asked there too?" he exclaimed angrily, as he saw the vicar pass in at
the Burges' gate. "It's a shame, that it is; and no more favour ought
to be shown to the mistress than the master. But I won't have it. I
won't stand it. She shan't talk to Canninge, and I'll speak to her
about it to-night. I consider her as good as mine, and it's abominable
for her to be going where I'm not asked, and talking to the gentry like
this. Gentry, indeed! Ha, ha, ha! I don't think much of such gentry
as Mr Burge: a nasty, fat, stuck-up, red-faced, common, kidney-dealing,
beefsteak butcher--that's what he is!"

Strange to say, Mr Chute did not feel any better for this verbal
explosion, but after casting a few angry glances at the house that was
tabooed to him, he turned back into the fields, and began, in a
make-believe sort of manner, to botanise, collecting any of the simple
plants around, and trying to recollect the orders to which they
belonged, but always keeping within sight of Mr Burge's gates.

"There'll be a regular row about this, and I hope Lambent will give her
a few words of a sort," he muttered. "It will prepare her for what I
mean to say to her to-night. I'll give her such a lesson. I shall
divide my lesson into three parts," he went on, speaking mechanically.
"How many parts shall I divide my lesson into!--Oh, what a fool I am!--
What's this? Oh, it's a cress. Belongs to the cruciferous family,
and--Hang the cruciferous family! It's too bad. I won't stand it.
There'll be a regular scandal about her talking to the young squire. I
don't mind, of course; but I won't stand it for the sake of the schools.
A girl who has been trained ought to know better. You wouldn't catch a
master trained at Saint Mark's going on like that with girls."

And then somehow, with a bunch of wild flowers in his hand, Mr Chute's
thoughts ran back to certain Saturday afternoons, when three or four
students somehow found themselves in the neighbourhood of Chelsea,
meeting accidentally with three or four other students who did not wear
coats and waistcoats; and in the walks that followed parsing was never
mentioned, a blade-board and chalk never came into their heads, neither
did they converse on the notes of an object lesson, or ask one another
what