heard any one pray but mother; and do you know, Eric,
it was strange, but I thought, I _did_ hear our mother's voice praying
for me too, while he prayed, and--" He tried in vain to go on; but
Eric's conscience continued for him; "and just as he had ceased doing
this for one brother, the other brother, for whom he has often done the
same, treated him with coarseness, violence, and insolence."

"Oh, I am utterly wretched, Verny. I hate myself. And to think that
while I'm like this they are yet loving and praising me at home. And, O
Verny, I was so sorry to hear from Duncan how you were talking the other
day."

Vernon hid his face on Eric's shoulder; and as his brother stooped over
him and folded him to his heart, they cried in silence, for there seemed
no more to say, until, wearied with sorrow, the younger fell asleep and
then Eric carried him tenderly down stairs, and laid him, still half
sleeping, upon his bed.

He laid him down, and looked at him as he slumbered. The other boys had
not been disturbed by their noiseless entrance, and he sat down on his
brother's bed to think, shading off the light of the candle with his
hand. It was rarely now that Eric's thoughts were so rich with the
memories of childhood, and sombre with the consciousness of sin, as they
were that night, while he gazed on his brother Vernon's face. He did
not know what made him look so long and earnestly; an indistinct sorrow,
an unconjectured foreboding, passed over his mind, like the shadow of a
summer cloud. Vernon was now slumbering deeply; his soft bright hair
fell over his forehead, and his head nestled in the pillow; but there
was an expression of uneasiness on his sleeping features, and the long
eyelashes were still wet with tears.

"Poor child," thought Eric; "dear little Vernon: and he is to be
flogged, perhaps birched, to-morrow."

He went off sadly to bed, and hardly once remembered that _he_ too would
come in for very severe and certain punishment the next day.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FOUR.

MR ROSE AND BRIGSON.

Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Poena claudo.
_Horace_.

After prayers the next morning Dr Rowlands spoke to his boarders on the
previous day's discovery, and in a few forcible vivid words, set before
them the enormity of the offence. He ended by announcing that the boys
who were caught would be birched,--"except the elder ones, who will
bring me one hundred lines every hour of the half-holi