ily when they
heard of Neal's arrival.

It was soon answered. He had been suspended.

He would give little explanation; he merely asserted that he was
innocent of that of which he was accused. Some of the boys, the most
unmanageable at St. Asaph's, had plotted to do some mischief. Neal,
being more or less intimate with the set, was asked to join in the plot,
but refused. He was with the boys, however, up to the moment of their
putting it into execution. Afterwards circumstances pointed to his
having been concerned in it, and his known intimacy with these very boys
condemned him.

There was but one person who could prove absolutely that he had not been
with the culprits that night, and that person held his peace.

Of course Cynthia rightly suspected that it was Bronson.

A letter came from the head master of the school, stating the facts as
they appeared to him, and announcing with regret that he had been
obliged to suspend Neal Gordon for the remainder of the term.

It was an unfortunate affair altogether. Neal was moody and
low-spirited, and he was deeply offended that his story was not
generally believed, for the household was divided in regard to it.

Jack and Cynthia stoutly maintained his innocence, Mr. Franklin and
Edith looked at the worst side of it, while Mrs. Franklin was undecided
in her opinion.

She wanted to believe her brother's word, she did believe it, and yet
all the proved facts were so hopelessly against him. The other boys that
had been suspended were his friends. Neal had been reproved before for
mischief that he had been in with them. It was one of those sad cases
when a man's past record counts against him, no matter how innocent he
may be of the present offence. But Hester could not believe that her
brother would lie to her.

One morning Edith drove her father to the train. Not a vestige of snow
was left near the road; only a patch or two on the hills, and even that
was rapidly disappearing in the spring sunshine which every day grew
warmer.

"Have you heard much about St. Asaph's from any one but Neal?" asked Mr.
Franklin, quite abruptly. "Doesn't that cousin of the Morgans go there?"

"Do you mean Tom, papa? Yes, he does, and Tony Bronson, too, who stays
at the Morgans' occasionally."

"I think I remember. Did you ever hear either of them speak of Neal, or
discuss him in any way?"

Edith hesitated.

"Tom Morgan never did," she said at last.

"And the other fellow?"

"Yes,