d you to have this money first. I shall only call it borrowing
from you, Harry Gregson, if I take it and use it to pay off the debt. I
shall pay Mr. Gray interest on this money, because he is to stand as your
guardian, as it were, till you come of age; and he must fix what ought to
be done with it, so as to fit you for spending the principal rightly when
the estate can repay it you. I suppose, now, it will be right for you to
be educated. That will be another snare that will come with your money.
But have courage, Harry. Both education and money may be used rightly,
if we only pray against the temptations they bring with them."

Harry could make no answer, though I am sure he understood it all. My
lady wanted to get him to talk to her a little, by way of becoming
acquainted with what was passing in his mind; and she asked him what he
would like to have done with his money, if he could have part of it now?
To such a simple question, involving no talk about feelings, his answer
came readily enough.

"Build a cottage for father, with stairs in it, and give Mr. Gray a
school-house. O, father does so want Mr. Gray for to have his wish!
Father saw all the stones lying quarried and hewn on Farmer Hale's land;
Mr. Gray had paid for them all himself. And father said he would work
night and day, and little Tommy should carry mortar, if the parson would
let him, sooner than that he should be fretted and frabbed as he was,
with no one giving him a helping hand or a kind word."

Harry knew nothing of my lady's part in the affair; that was very clear.
My lady kept silence.

"If I might have a piece of my money, I would buy land from Mr. Brooks;
he has got a bit to sell just at the corner of Hendon Lane, and I would
give it to Mr. Gray; and, perhaps, if your ladyship thinks I may be
learned again, I might grow up into the schoolmaster."

"You are a good boy," said my lady. "But there are more things to be
thought of, in carrying out such a plan, than you are aware of. However,
it shall be tried."

"The school, my lady?" I exclaimed, almost thinking she did not know what
she was saying.

"Yes, the school. For Mr. Horner's sake, for Mr. Gray's sake, and last,
not least, for this lad's sake, I will give the new plan a trial. Ask
Mr. Gray to come up to me this afternoon about the land he wants. He
need not go to a Dissenter for it. And tell your father he shall have a
good share in the building of it, and Tommy shall