hurry, and she was
coming out."

"He did it o' purpose, Miss," cried Maria viciously.

"That will do, Maria," said Helen with dignity. "Mrs Millet, see that
these broken pieces are removed. Dexter, come down to the drawing-room
with me."

Dexter sighed and followed, feeling the while that after all the Union
School was a happy place, and that he certainly was not happy here.

"It is very unfortunate that you should meet with such accidents,
Dexter," said Helen, as soon as they were alone.

"Yes," he said piteously, "ain't it? I say--"

"Well, Dexter!"

"It's no good. I know what he wants to do. He said he wanted to make a
gentleman of me, but you can't do it, and I'd better be 'prenticed to a
shoemaker, same as lots of boys have been."

Helen said nothing, but looked at the boy with a troubled gaze, as she
wondered whether her father's plan was possible.

"You had better go out in the garden again, Dexter," she said after a
time.

The trouble had been passing off, and Dexter leaped up with alacrity;
but as he reached the window he saw Dan'l crossing the lawn, and he
stopped short, turned, and came back to sit down with a sigh.

"Well, Dexter," said Helen, "why don't you go?"

He gave her a pitiful look which went right to her heart, as he said
slowly--

"No. I shan't go. I should only get into trouble again."

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE.

"I say," said Dexter, a few days later, as he followed Helen into the
drawing-room. "What have I been doing now!"

"I hope nothing fresh, Dexter. Have you been in mischief!"

"I don't know," he said; "only I've been in the study, and there's a
tall gent."

"Say gentleman, Dexter."

"Tall gentleman with a white handkerchief round his neck, and he has
been asking me questions, and every time I answered him he sighed, and
said, `Dear me!'"

"Indeed!" said Helen, smiling. "What did he ask you?"

"If I knew Euclid; and when I said I didn't know him, he said, `Oh dear
me!' Then he asked me if I knew Algebra, and I said I didn't, and he
shook his head at me and said, `Dear me! dear me!' and that he would
have to pull me up. I say, what have I done to be pulled up!"

"Don't you know that Euclid wrote a work on Geometry, and that Algebra
is a study by which calculations are made!"

"No," said Dexter eagerly. "I thought they were two people. Then why
did he say he would have to pull me up?"

"He meant that you were very much