er
his pillow, saying--

"It was only the Lesson."

"Why can't you read the Lesson like a sensible man in its native
English? Don't laugh, children, you know what I mean. There's no
good in this fellow working his brain. He can't go up again before
September, and according to the Bishop's letter to my father, he is
safe to pass, if he could not construe a line, after what he did at
Wil'sbro'. The Bishop and Co. found they had made considerable
donkeys of themselves. Yes, 'tis the ticket for you to be shocked;
but it is just like badgering a fellow for his commission by asking
him how many facets go to a dragon-fly's eye, instead of how he can
stand up to a battery."

"So I thought," said Herbert; "but I know now what it is to be in
the teeth of the battery without having done my best to get my
weapons about me."

"Come now! Would any of those poor creatures have been the better
for your knowing

"How many notes a sackbut has,
Or whether shawms have strings,"

or the Greek particles, which I believe were what sacked you?"

"They would have been the better if I had ever learnt to think what
men's souls are, or my own either," said Herbert, with a heavy sigh.

"Ah! well, you have had a sharp campaign," said Phil; "but you'll
soon get the better of it when you are at Nice with the old folks.
Jolly place--lots of nice girls--something always going on. I'll
try and get leave to take you out; but you'll cut us all out!
Ladies won't look at a fellow when there's an interesting young
parson to the fore."

Herbert made an action of negation, and his sister said--

"The doctors say Nice will not do after such an illness as this.
Papa asked the doctor there, and he said he could not advise it."

"Indeed! Then I'll tell you what, Herbs, you shall come into
lodgings at York, and I'll look after you there. You shall ride
Pimento, and dine at the mess."

"Thank you, Phil," said Herbert, to whom a few months ago this
proposal would have been most seducing, "but I am going home, and
that's all the change I shall want."

"Home! Yes, Ellen is getting ready for you. Not your room--oh, no!
but the state bedroom! When will you come? My leave is only till
Tuesday."

"Oh! I don't know how to think of the drive," sighed Herbert
wearily.

"We must wait for a fine day, when he feels strong enough," said
Jenny.

"All right," said Phil; "but ten days or a fortnight there will be
quite enough, and then you'll co