Out upon you for a miserable young
sneak!"

That all came up wonderfully real before me, and I felt the skin of my
forehead wrinkle up and tighten other parts of my face, while I groaned
to myself, as if apologising to my uncle,--

"But I can't stop here, I am so miserable, and I shall be horribly
punished for what I could not help. The boys say the Doctor is very
severe, sometimes."

There was my uncle's stern face still, just as I had conjured it up, and
he was frowning.

He will be horribly angry with me, I thought, and it would make poor
mamma so unhappy, and--

"I can't go, and I won't go," I said, half aloud. "I don't care if the
Doctor cuts me to pieces; and I won't tell how I got the marks, for, if
I do, all the boys will think I am a sneak."

"Fill the tea-cup--fill the tea-cup--fill the tea-cup! High up--high
up--high up! Fine morning--fine morning--fine morning!"

The notes of a thrush, sounding exactly like that, with the help of a
little imagination; and I rose, went to the window, gazed out, and there
was the sun, looking like a great globe of orange, lighting up the mists
in the hollows, and making everything look so glorious, that I began to
feel a little better.

Turning round to look at my schoolfellows asleep in their little narrow
beds, all in exceedingly ungraceful attitudes, and looking towzley and
queer, I saw that, as I held the blind on one side, the sunlight shone
full on Mercer, and I hurt myself directly by bursting out into a silent
fit of laughter, which drew my bruised face into pain-producing puckers.
But it was impossible to help it, all the same, for Mercer's phiz
looked so comic.

The swelling about his eyes had gone down, and there were only very
faint marks beneath them, but his mouth was twisted all on one side, and
his nose looked nearly twice as big as usual.

He's worse than I am, I thought, as I stood gazing at him, and this
brought up our visit to the lodge the previous evening, and a grim
feeling of satisfaction began to make me glow, as I dwelt upon Mercer's
plans, and in imagination I saw myself about to be possessed of a
powerful talisman, which would enable me to retaliate on my enemies, and
be always one who could protect the weak from the oppressor. And as I
stood thinking all this, I turned again to look out of the window, where
the lovely landscape of the Sussex weald lay stretched out before me,
and listened to the birds bursting forth into their f