irly if you don't
know?"

He was obliged to confess his ignorance, and Richard made him conjugate
the whole verb opponor from beginning to end, in which he wanted a good
deal of help.

Ethel could not help saying, "How did you find out the meaning of that
word, Tom, if you didn't look out the verb?"

"I--don't know," drawled Tom, in the voice, half sullen, half piteous,
which he always assumed when out of sorts.

"It is very odd," she said decidedly; but Richard took no notice, and
proceeded to the other lessons, which went off tolerably well, except
the arithmetic, where there was some great misunderstanding, into which
Ethel did not enter for some time. When she did attend, she perceived
that Tom had brought a right answer, without understanding the working
of the sum, and that Richard was putting him through it. She began to
be worked into a state of dismay and indignation at Tom's behaviour, and
Richard's calm indifference, which made her almost forget 'Jane Sparks',
and long to be alone with Richard; but all the world kept coming into
the room, and going out, and she could not say what was in her mind till
after dinner, when, seeing Richard go up into Margaret's room, she ran
after him, and entering it, surprised Margaret, by not beginning on her
books, but saying at once, "Ritchie, I wanted to speak to you about Tom.
I am sure he shuffled about those lessons."

"I am afraid he does," said Richard, much concerned.

"What, do you mean that it is often so?"

"Much too often," said Richard; "but I have never been able to detect
him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his
lessons that I cannot make out."

"Did you know it, Margaret?" said Ethel, astonished not to see her
sister looked shocked as well as sorry.

"Yes," said Margaret, "Ritchie and I have often talked it over, and
tried to think what was to be done."

"Dear me! why don't you tell papa? It is such a terrible thing!"

"So it is," said Margaret, "but we have nothing positive or tangible
to accuse Tom of; we don't know what he does, and have never caught him
out."

"I am sure he must have found out the meaning of that oppositum in some
wrong way--if he had looked it out, he would only have found opposite.
Nothing but opponor could have shown him the rendering which he made."

"That's like what I have said almost every day," said Richard, "but
there we are--I can't get any further."

"Perhaps he guesses by the context,"