t it at home. These holidays, Hugh made a better
listener than even his sisters; and he was a more amusing one--he knew
so little about the country. He asked every question that could be
imagined about the playground at the Crofton school, and the boys'
doings out of school; and then, when Philip fancied he must know all
about what was done, out came some odd remark which showed what wrong
notions he had formed of a country life. Hugh had not learned half that
he wanted to know, and his little head was full of wonder and mysterious
notions, when the holidays came to an end, and Philip had to go away.
From that day Hugh was heard to talk less of Spain, and the sea, and
desert islands, and more of the Crofton boys; and his play with little
Harry was all of being at school. At his lessons, meantime, he did not
improve at all.

One very warm day, at the end of August, five weeks after Philip had
returned to school, Miss Harold had stayed full ten minutes after twelve
o'clock to hear Hugh say one line of the multiplication-table over and
over again, to cure him of saying that four times seven is fifty-six;
but all in vain: and Mrs Proctor had pegged her not to spend any more
time to-day upon it.

Miss Harold went away, the girls took their sewing, and sat down at
their mother's work-table, while Hugh was placed before her, with his
hands behind his back, and desired to look his mother full in the face,
to begin again with "four times one is four," and go through the line,
taking care what he was about. He did so; but before he came to four
times seven, he sighed, fidgetted, looked up at the corners of the room,
off into the work-basket, out into the street, and always, as if by a
spell, finished with "four times seven is fifty-six." Jane looked up
amazed--Agnes looked down ashamed; his mother looked with severity in
his face. He began the line a fourth time, when, at the third figure,
he started as if he had been shot. It was only a knock at the door that
he had heard; a treble knock, which startled nobody else, though, from
the parlour-door being open, it sounded pretty loud.

Mrs Proctor spread a handkerchief over the stockings in her
work-basket; Jane put back a stray curl which had fallen over her face;
Agnes lifted up her head with a sigh, as if relieved that the
multiplication-table must stop for this time; and Hugh gazed into the
passage, through the open door, when he heard a man's step there. The
maid an