a quiet hour unmolested, and tried,
with the help of his little hymn-book, and thinking over old times, to
bring back some of his former happy thoughts. There were more than
ordinary temptations around him, and he felt less able to resist them;
and this little rest from noise and hurry was to him very grateful.
When, at length, a little party found out his retreat and begged him
to join in a game of "hocky," he complied with a light and merry heart,
freer from that restless anxiety to which he had been lately so much
subject.

In the afternoon, determining to let nothing interfere with the learning
of his lessons, Louis sat down in the school-room to business. There were
but two persons besides himself in the room, one of whom was an usher,
who was writing a letter, and the other, his school-fellow Ferrers. The
latter was sitting on the opposite side of the same range of desks Louis
had chosen, very intently engaged in the same work which had brought
Louis there.

Louis felt very happy in the consciousness that he was foregoing
the pleasure of the merry playground for the stern business that his
duty had imposed on him; and the noise of his companions' voices,
and the soft breezes that came in through the open door leading into
the playground, only spurred him on to finish his work as quickly
as possible.

Ferrers and his younger _vis-a-vis_ pursued their work in silence,
apparently unconscious of the presence of each other, until the
former, raising his head, asked Louis to fetch him an atlas out
of the study.

"With pleasure," said Louis, jumping up and running into the study;
he returned almost immediately with a large atlas, and laid it down
on Ferrers' books. He had once more given his close attention to his
difficult exercises, when a movement from his companion attracted
his notice.

"Did you speak?" he said.

"Will you--oh, never mind, I'll do it myself," muttered Ferrers,
rising and going into the class-room himself.

Louis had become again so intent upon his study, that he was hardly
aware of the return of his school-fellow, nor did he notice the
precipitation with which he hurried into his place, and half hid
the book he had brought with him, a book that he imagined to be a
key to his exercises, but which, in fact, was a counterpart to that
taken away from Harrison, though bound exactly like the one Ferrers
had gone for, and so nearly the same size as easily to be mistaken
for it in the confusion a