his fair companion; and having
nothing to say in extenuation of his crime, he relapsed into silence.

Miss Oliphant, apparently unaware of the effect of her little protest,
stroked her dog again and said--

"Are you an artist?"

"No; are you?"

"I want to be. I'd give anything to get out of going to Maxfield, and
have a room here in town near the galleries. It will be awful waste of
time in that dull place."

"Perhaps your father--" began the tutor; but she took him up half
angrily.

"My father intends us to stay at Maxfield. In fact, you may as well
know it at once, and let Roger know it too. We're as poor as church-
mice, and can't afford to do anything else. Oh, how I wish we had
stopped where we were!" And her voice actually trembled as she said the
words.

It was an uncomfortable position for Mr Armstrong. Once again his
mother-wit failed him, and he watched the little hand as it moved up and
down the dog's back in silence.

"I tell you this," continued the young lady, "because tutors are
generally poor, and you'll understand it. I wish papa understood it
half as well. I do believe he really enjoys the prospect of going and
landing himself and all of us at that place."

"You forget that it is by the desire and invitation of the old Squire,"
said the tutor.

"Father might easily have declined. He ought to have. He wasn't like
you, fond of Roger. He doesn't care--at least I fancy he doesn't--much
about Roger at all. Oh, I wish I could earn enough to pay for every
bite every one of us eats!"

To the tutor's immense relief, at this point Captain Oliphant
reappeared, followed by Roger with a boy and little girl.

The boy was some years the junior of the heir of Maxfield, a rotund,
matter-of-fact, jovial-looking lad, sturdy in body, easy in temper, and
perhaps by no means brilliant in intellect. The turmoil of debarkation
failed to ruffle him, and the information given him in sundry quarters
that he was the _fons et origo_ of all the confusion in the cabin failed
to impress him. Everything that befell Tom Oliphant came in the day's
work, and would probably vanish with the night's sleep. Meanwhile it
was the duty of every one, himself included, to be jolly. So he
accepted his father's chidings and Roger's greetings in equally good
part; agreed with every word the former said, and gave in his allegiance
to the latter with one and the same smile, and thought to himself how
jolly to be in E