in the Glamour and dry themselves in the sun ten times a day. For the
master, he only hoped to get away from the six thousand eyes of
Glamerton. Not one allusion had been made in his hearing to his dismal
degradation, but he knew that that was only because it was too dreadful
to be alluded to. Every time he passed a woman with a baby in her arms
at a cottage door, the blind eyes in the back of his head saw her
cuddling her child, and the ears that are always hearing what never was
said, heard her hope that _he_ would never bring such disgrace upon
himself and upon her. The tone of additional kindness and consideraton
with which many addressed him, only made him think of what lay behind,
and refuse every invitation given him. But if he were once "in secret
shadow far from all men's sight," his oppressed heart would begin to
revive, and he might gather strength enough to face with calmness what
he would continue to face somehow, in the performance of his arrears of
duty to the boys and girls of Glamerton.

Can one ever bring up arrears of duty? Can one ever make up for wrong
done? Will not heaven be an endless repentance?

It would need a book to answer the first two of these questions. To the
last of them I answer, "Yes--but a glad repentance."

At length the slow hour arrived. Longing thoughts had almost
obliterated the figures upon Time's dial, and made it look a hopeless
undivided circle of eternity. But at length twelve o'clock on Saturday
came; and the delight would have been almost unendurable to some, had
it not been calmed by the dreary proximity of the Sabbath lying between
them and freedom. To add to their joy, there was no catechism that day.
The prayer, although a little longer than usual, was yet over within a
minute after the hour. And almost as soon as the _Amen_ was out of the
master's mouth, the first boys were shouting jubilantly in the open
air. Truffey, who was always the last, was crutching it out after the
rest, when he heard the master's voice calling him back. He obeyed it
with misgiving--so much had fear become a habit.

"Ask your grandfather, Andrew, if he will allow you to go down to the
seaside with me for a fortnight or three weeks," said the master.

"Yes, sir," Truffey meant to say, but the attempt produced in reality
an unearthly screech of delight, with which he went off on a series of
bounds worthy of a kangaroo, lasting all the way to his grandfather's,
and taking him there in half