ng lately. You have got into many scrapes, and are letting
boys beat you in form who are far your inferiors in ability. That is a
very bad _sign_, Eric; in itself it is a discouraging fact, but I fear
it indicates worse evils. You are wasting the golden hours, my boy, that
can never return. I only hope and trust that no other change for the
worse is going on in your character."

And so he talked on till the boy's sorrow was undisguised. "Come," he
said gently, "let us kneel down together before we part."

Boy and master knelt down humbly side by side, and, from a full heart,
the young man poured out his fervent petitions for the child beside him.
Eric's heart seemed to catch a glow from his words, and he loved him as
a brother. He rose from his knees full of the strongest resolutions, and
earnestly promised amendment for the future.

But poor Eric did not yet know his own infirmity. For a time, indeed,
there was a marked improvement; but daily life flowed on with its usual
allurements, and when the hours of temptation came, his good intentions
melted away, so that, in a few more weeks, the prayer, and the vows that
followed it, had been obliterated from his memory without leaving any
traces in his life.

CHAPTER XI

ERIC IN COVENTRY

"And either greet him not
Or else disdainfully, which shall shake him more
Than if not looked on."--TROILUS AND CRESSIDA, iii. 3.

Upton, expatriated from his study, was allowed to use one of the smaller
class-rooms which were occupied during play-hours by those boys who were
too high in the school for "the boarders' room," and who were waiting to
succeed to the studies as they fell vacant. There were three or four
others with him in this class-room, and although it was less pleasant
than his old quarters, it was yet far more comfortable than the
Pandemonium of the shell and fourth-form boys.

As a general rule, no boys were allowed to sit in any of the class-rooms
except their legitimate occupants. The rule, however, was very generally
overlooked, and hence Eric, always glad of an opportunity to escape from
the company of Barker and his associates, became a constant frequenter
of his friend's new abode. Here they used to make themselves very
comfortable. Joining the rest, they would drink coffee or chocolate, and
amuse themselves over the fire with Punch, or some warlike novel in a
green or yellow cover. One of them very often read aloud to the r