en Dicksee, who looked green, made his statement, and before he had
done, the General thumped his stick down on the floor loudly.

"Here, Doctor: this fellow won't do at all. He's a sneak and a
miserable, malicious scoundrel. You can see it all over his face.
You're not going to take up the cudgels for him, are you?"

"I am sorry to say I cannot," replied the Doctor gravely; "and if this
sad business rested upon his word alone, I should not have acted as I
have; but, as you have heard and will hear, Sir Hawkhurst, we have
terribly strong evidence. I wish it were otherwise."

And again the weary business went on, with my mental agony increasing as
I saw my mother's eyes fixed upon me. At first imploringly, then they
seemed to be full of pain, and later on it seemed to me as if she, were
suffering from a sorrow that was too hard for her to bear.

Then she would flush up angrily, and turn a reproachful look upon my
uncle, as he questioned the boys and the masters, entered into what
seemed to be angry controversies with the Doctor, and generally went
against me all through, until I began to look at him with horror, as the
greatest enemy I had in the room.

That I was not alone in my opinion was soon evident, for I heard the
Doctor sigh, and look reproachfully at him, while twice over Sir
Hawkhurst uttered a gruff,--

"No, no, sir. Oh, come, come, Seaborough, be just."

"I am trying to be just," said my uncle sternly, after the General had
said this last again. "Recollect, sir, I stand in the position of this
boy's father. He is my dear sister's only child, and it has been my
great desire to have him brought up as a worthy successor to his brave
father,--as a soldier and a gentleman,--and because I speak firmly and
feel warmly upon the subject, you say, `Be just.'"

"Well, well," cried the General, "you have struck me several times as
being hard."

"Yes, Sir Hawkhurst," assented the Doctor; "perhaps too hard."

"Absurd, gentlemen!" cried my uncle. "I'm not the boy's mother, to
forgive him after a few tears, and tell him he must be a good boy, and
never do so again."

"Colonel Seaborough," cried Mrs Doctor reproachfully, "and pray who is
to forgive, if it is not a mother?"

"A beautiful sentiment, madam," cried my uncle; "but you forget that,
after building up my hopes on this boy's success in life, I am suddenly
summoned, not to come ready to defend him from the foul charge, but to
have it literally for