its close, the day before
the breaking-up, the list was posted on the door of the great
school-room, and most boys made an impetuous rush to see the result. But
Eric was too nervous to be present at the hour when this was usually
done, and he had asked Russell to bring him the news.

He was walking up and down the garden, counting the number of steps he
took, counting the number of shrubs along each path, and devising every
sort of means to beguile the time, when he heard hasty steps, and
Russell burst in at the back gate, breathless with haste, and bright
with excitement.

"Hurrah! old fellow," he cried, seizing both Eric's hands; "I never
felt so glad in my life;" and he shook his friend's arms up and down,
laughing joyously.

"Well! tell me," said Eric.

"First, {Owen/Williams} Aequales," "you've got head remove you see, in
spite of your forebodings, as I always said you would; and I
congratulate you with all my heart."

"No?" said Eric, "have I really?--you're not joking? Oh! hurrah!--I must
rush in and tell them;" and he bounded off.

In a second he was back at Russell's side. "What a selfish animal I am!
Where are you placed, Russell?"

"Oh! magnificent; I'm third;--far higher than I expected."

"I'm so glad," said Eric. "Come in with me and tell them. I'm head
remove, mother," he shouted, springing into the parlor where his father
and mother sat.

In the lively joy that this announcement excited, Russell stood by for
the moment unheeded; and when Eric took him by the hand to tell them
that he was third, he hung his head, and a tear was in his eye.

"Poor boy! I'm afraid you're disappointed," said Mrs. Williams kindly,
drawing him to her side.

"Oh no, no! it's not _that_," said Russell, hastily, as he lifted his
swimming eyes towards her face.

"Are you hurt, Russell?" asked Eric, surprised.

"Oh! no; don't ask me; I am only foolish to-day;" and with a burst of
sorrow he flung his arms round Mrs. Williams' neck. She folded him to
her heart, and kissed him tenderly; and when his sobs would let him
speak, he whispered to her in a low tone, "It is but a year since I
became an orphan."

"Dearest child," she said, "look on me as a mother; I love you very
dearly for your own sake as well as Eric's."

Gradually he grew calmer. They made him stay to dinner and spend the
rest of the day there, and by the evening he had recovered all his usual
sprightliness. Towards sunset he and Eric went for a stroll