d
mothers like mine they wouldn't be the cads they were!

So, with almost unnecessary pomp, I raised my hat to my parent, and put
my hand in her arm.

"You're going up to Miss Bousfield's," said she; "I thought I should
meet you. What a hurry you were in!"

"Yes; I'm sorry I knocked against you, mother."

"I'm glad you did. I'm longing to hear how you got on to-day."

"Oh, pretty well."

"Was it very hard work?"

"Not particularly."

"You'll soon be quite a man of business."

It occurred to me that if my business career was to be based on no
better experience than that I had hitherto had in my guardian's office,
I should not rank as a merchant prince in a hurry.

"Would you like me to go with you to Miss Bousfield's?"

"If you like, mother. But I can go alone all right." She was a brick.
She guessed what I hoped she would say, and she said it.

"Well, I'll be looking out for you at tea-time, dear boy," said she.
And she patted my arm lovingly as I started on.

I wished those fellows could have heard her voice and seen her kind
face. _She_ treated me like a man--which was more than could be said
for them.

I went on my way soothed in my ruffled spirits. But my perturbation
revived when I stood on the doorstep of the Girls' High School, and rang
the head mistress's bell. It was a bitter pill, I can tell you, for a
fellow who had once been caned by Plummer for practising on the
horizontal bar without the mattress underneath to fall on.

Miss Bousfield was a shrewd, not disagreeable-looking little body, who
saved me all the trouble of self-introduction by knowing who I was and
why I came.

"Well, Jones," said she--I liked that, I had dreaded she would call me
Tommy--"here you are. How is your mother? Why, what a state your hair
is in! I really think you'd like to go into the cloak room; you'll find
a brush and comb there. It looks as if your hair were standing on end
with horror at me, you know."

Little she knew what my hair was on end about. I was almost grateful to
her for the way she put it, and meekly retired to the cloak room,
where--I confess it--with a long-tailed girl's comb, and a soft brush,
and a big looking-glass, I contrived to restore my truant locks to their
former masculine order.

When I returned to the room. Miss Bousfield was sitting at a table, at
which was also seated a young lady of about twenty, with an exercise
book and dictionary in front of her.

Was it a tra