nd, staring at his brother, as if the good news hardly
penetrated the gloom; and, after a disappointing silence, recurred to
the most immediate cause of distress: "Eight shillings and tenpence
halfpenny! Norman, if you would only lend it to me, you shall have all
my tin till I have made it up--sixpence a week, and half-a-crown on New
Year's Day."

"I am not going to pay Mr. Axworthy's reckoning," said Norman, rather
angrily. "You will never be better till you have told my father the
whole."

"Do you think they will send in the bill to my father?" asked Tom, in
alarm.

"No, indeed! that is the last thing they will do," said Norman; "but I
would not have you come to him only for such a sneaking reason."

"But the girls would hear it. Oh, if I thought Mary and Margaret would
ever hear it--Norman, I can't--"

Norman assured him that there was not the slightest reason that these
passages should ever come to the knowledge of his sisters. Tom was
excessively afraid of his father, but he could not well be more wretched
than he was already; and he was brought to assent when Norman showed
him that he had never been happy since the affair of the blotting-paper,
when his father's looks and tones had become objects of dread to his
guilty conscience. Was not the only means of recovering a place in
papa's esteem to treat him with confidence?

Tom answered not, and would only shudder when his brother took upon him
to declare that free confession would gain pardon even for the doings at
the Green Man.

Tom had grown stupefied and passive, and his sole dependence was on
Norman, so, at last, he made no opposition when his brother offered to
conduct him to his father and speak for him. The danger now was that
Dr. May should not be forthcoming, and the elder brother was as much
relieved, as the younger was dismayed, to see, through the drawing-room
window, that he was standing beside Margaret.

"Papa, can you come and speak to me," said Norman, "at the door?"

"Coming! What now?" said the doctor, entering the hall. "What, Tom, my
boy, what is it?" as he saw the poor child, white, cold, almost sick
with apprehension, with every pulse throbbing, and looking positively
ill. He took the chilly, damp hand, which shook nervously, and would
fain have withdrawn itself.

"Come, my dear, let us see what is amiss;" and before Tom knew what he
was doing, he had seated him on his knee, in the arm-chair in the study,
and was feeling his puls