the advice, and, full of mortification, went home. He gave his
father a true and manly account of the whole occurrence, and that
afternoon Mr. Williams wrote a note of apology and explanation to Mr.
Gordon. Next time the form went up, Mr. Gordon said, in his most
freezing tones, "Williams, at present I shall take no further notice of
your offence beyond including you in the extra lesson every
half-holiday."

From that day forward Eric felt that he was marked and suspected, and
the feeling worked on him with the worst effects. He grew more careless
in work, and more trifling and indifferent in manner. Several boys now
beat him whom he had easily surpassed before, and his energies were for
a time entirely directed to keeping that supremacy in the games which he
had won by his activity and strength.

It was a Sunday afternoon, towards the end of the summer term, and the
boys were sauntering about in the green playground, or lying on the
banks reading and chatting. Eric was with a little knot of his chief
friends, enjoying the sea breeze as they sat on the grass. At last the
bell of the school chapel began to ring, and they went in to the
afternoon service. Eric usually sat with Duncan and Llewellyn,
immediately behind the benches allotted to chance visitors. The bench in
front of them happened on this afternoon to be occupied by some rather
odd people, viz., an old man with long white hair, and two ladies
remarkably stout, who were dressed with much juvenility, although past
middle age. Their appearance immediately attracted notice, and no sooner
had they taken their seats than Duncan and Llewellyn began to titter.
The ladies' bonnets, which were of white, trimmed with long green leaves
and flowers, just peered over the top of the boys' pew, and excited much
amusement. But Eric had not yet learnt to disregard the solemnity of the
place, and the sacred act in which they were engaged. He tried to look
away, and attend to the service, and for a time he partially succeeded,
although, seated as he was between the two triflers, who were
perpetually telegraphing to each other their jokes, he found it a
difficult task, and secretly he began to be much tickled.

At last the sermon commenced, and Llewellyn, who had imprisoned a
grasshopper in a paper cage, suddenly let it hop out. The first hop took
it to the top of the pew; the second perched it on the shoulder of the
stoutest lady. Duncan and Llewellyn tittered louder, and even