hing; but after he
was in bed, it flashed upon him that he should meet uncle and aunt Shaw
in church to-morrow, and they would speak to Phil and him after church;
and his uncle might ask after the half-crown. He determined not to
expose his companions, at any rate: but his uncle would be displeased;
and this thought was so sad that Hugh cried himself to sleep. His uncle
and aunt were at church the next morning; and Hugh could not forget the
ginger-beer, or help watching his uncle: so that, though he tried
several times to attend to the sermon; he knew nothing about it when it
was done. His uncle observed in the churchyard that they must have had
a fine ramble the day before; but did not say anything about
pocket-money. Neither did he name a day for his nephews to visit him,
though he said they must come before the days grew much shorter. So
Hugh thought he had got off very well thus far. In the afternoon,
however, Mrs Watson, who invited him and Holt into her parlour, to look
over the pictures in her great Bible, was rather surprised to find how
little Hugh could tell her of the sermon, considering how much he had
remembered the Sunday before. She had certainly thought that to-day's
sermon had been the simpler, and the more interesting to young people,
of the two. Her conversation with Hugh did him good, however. It
reminded him of his mother's words, and of her expectations from him;
and it made him resolve to bear, not only his loss, but any blame which
might come upon him silently, and without betraying anybody. He had
already determined, fifty times within the twenty-four hours, never to
be so weakly led again, when his own mind was doubtful, as he had felt
it all the time from leaving the heath to getting back to it again. He
began to reckon on the Christmas holidays, when he should have five
weeks at home, free from the evils of both places,--from lessons with
Miss Harold, and from Crofton scrapes.

It is probable that the whole affair would have passed over quietly, and
the woman in the lane might have made large profits by other
inexperienced boys, and Mr Carnaby might have gone on being careless as
to where the boys went out of his sight on Saturdays, but that Tom Holt
ate too many plums on the present occasion. On Sunday morning he was
not well; and was so ill by the evening, and all Monday, that he had to
be regularly nursed; and when he left his bed, he was taken to Mrs
Watson's parlour,--the com