utary; it fanned the coals of hatred
between the cousins.

Reckless Reginald soon found he had caught a Tartar in his new master.

That gentleman punished him severely for every breach of discipline.
The study was a cool dark room, with one window looking north, and that
window barred. Here he locked up the erratic youth for hours at a time,
upon the slightest escapade.

Reginald wrote a honeyed letter to Sir Charles, bewailing his lot, and
praying to be removed.

Sir Charles replied sternly, and sent him a copy of Mr. Richard
Bassett's letter. He wrote to Mr. Beecher at the same time, expressing
his full approval.

Thus disciplined, the boy began to change; he became moody, sullen,
silent, and even sleepy. This was the less wonderful, that he generally
escaped at night to a gypsy camp, and courted a gypsy girl, who was
nearly as handsome as himself, besides being older, and far more
knowing.

His tongue went like a mill, and the whole tribe soon knew all about
him and his parents.

One morning the servants got up supernaturally early, to wash. Mr.
Reginald was detected stealing back to his roost, and reported to the
master.

Mr. Beecher had him up directly, locked him into the study alone, put
the other students into the drawing-room, and erected bars to his
bedroom window.

A few days of this, and he pined like a bird in a cage.

A few more, and his gypsy girl came fortune-telling to the servants,
and wormed out the truth.

Then she came at night under his window, and made him a signal. He told
her his hard case, and told her also a resolution he had come to. She
informed the tribe. The tribe consulted. A keen saw was flung up to
him; in two nights he was through the bars; the third he was free, and
joined his sable friends.

They struck their tents, and decamped with horses, asses, tents, and
baggage, and were many miles away by daybreak, without troubling
turnpikes.

The boy left not a line behind him, and Mr. Beecher half hoped he might
come back; still he sent to the nearest station, and telegraphed to
Huntercombe.

Sir Charles mounted a fleet horse, and rode off at once into
Cambridgeshire. He set inquiries on foot, and learned that the boy had
been seen consorting with a tribe of gypsies. He heard, also, that
these were rather high gypsies, many of them foreigners; and that they
dealt in horses, and had a farrier; and that one or two of the girls
were handsome, and also singers.

Sir C