ies, then at Julius, for not having
looked after the lad better, and when this was meekly accepted,
indignation took a juster direction, and Herbert's folly and
idleness were severely lashed more severely than Julius thought they
quite deserved, but a word of pleading only made it worse. Have him
home to take leave? No, indeed, Mr. Bowater hoped he knew his duty
better as father of a family, when a young man had publicly
disgraced himself. "I'll tell you what, Julius Charnock, if you
wish him to forget all the little impression it may have made, and
be ready to run after any amount of folly, you'd make me have him
home to be petted and cried over by his mother and sisters. He has
been their spoilt pet too long, and I won't have him spoilt now.
I'll not see him till he has worked enough to show whether there's
any real stuff in him."

Mr. Bowater never even asked where his son was, probably taking it
for granted that he was gone back to Compton; nor did Julius see
Jenny again, as she was trying to comfort her mother under the
dreadful certainty that poor dear Herbert was most cruelly treated,
and that the examining chaplain came of a bad stock, and always had
had a dislike to the family. It was to be hoped that Mr. Bowater
would keep to his wise resolution, and not send for Herbert, for
nothing could be worse for him than the sympathy he would have met
with from her.

What with looking in to report at Rood House and finding Herbert
most grateful for leave to remain there for a few days, Julius did
not reach home till long after dark. Pleasantly did the light greet
him from the open doorway where his Rosamond was standing. She
sprang at once into his arms, as if he had been absent a month, and
cried, "Here you are, safe at last!" Then, as she pulled off his
wraps, "How tired you must be! Have you had any food? No--it's all
ready;" and he could see 'high tea' spread, and lighted by the first
fire of the season. "Come and begin!"

"What, without washing my hands?"

"You are to do that in the study; it is all ready." He did not
exactly see why he should be too tired to mount to his dressing-
room; but he obeyed, not ungratefully, and his chair was ready, his
plate heaped with partridge and his tumbler filled with ale almost
before his eyes had recovered the glare of light. The eagerness and
flutter of Rosamond's manner began to make him anxious, and he began
for the third time the inquiries she had always