laimed.

"Where? what! oh, horror!" cried Norman.

"There they are--they're hid; now, there they are again!--now look,
who is it? Stand behind this tree a minute--now let us look out."

Obedient to his instructions, Norman looked, and saw three boys drop
down one after another from the branch of a tree, that had evidently
assisted their descent from the playground wall, and then run across
the playground.

"Who are they?" said Trevannion, putting up his eye-glass (which,
gentle reader, be it known he carried for use). "One is Churchill,
I'm sure! Who's that long fellow? Why, it's Harris, isn't it? It
can't be, surely!"

"It is," said Norman; "and the other's Casson."

"I'm sure they are at no good," said Trevannion; "I shall make
a note of this remarkable occurrence."

So saying, he made a memorandum of the circumstance in his
pocket-book, and had just finished when the boys poured out
cloaked and great-coated, and informed him of the doctor's
desires.

The reader will be at no loss to discover Hamilton's reason for
exchanging the books. As Louis was out, he took Dr. Wilkinson's
with him into the class-room, and sat down to finish the six last
words of his poem; and then, folding it neatly up, enveloped it in
half a sheet of writing-paper. He was just pressing the seal upon
the wax, when his watch, which he had laid open before him, warned
him that the last minutes of the quarter of an hour had arrived.
He just pushed his things together, and left them on the table;
and snatching up his hat as he ran through the hall, scarcely
arrived at the garden-gate in time to save his character for
punctuality.

It so happened that Casson was Louis' companion during the walk,
and entertained him with a flowing account of all the vulgar tricks
he had been in the habit of playing at his former school. Louis could
not help laughing at them; nor would his vanity allow him to refrain
from boasting of--what he had before been properly ashamed--his own
share in some of Casson's late exploits. So afraid was he of seeming
inferior, even to a person he despised, and in those things which his
better feelings taught him equally to despise. Casson inwardly laughed
at Louis' boasted feats, as he had always done to others when Louis was
out of hearing; but he now quizzed him, stimulating him, by applauding
his spirit and ingenuity; and by the time they had reached the house,
Louis was in a thoroughly giddy humor, ready to try, at the