der conventions, but
then and there had hastened to make his confession in his father's ears.

"Governor! I'm sorry! I was a coward, and wouldn't own up. I've been
playing the fool again, and have lost more money. I owe over fifty
pounds, and it has to be paid up by the tenth of this month."

The Squire looked his son full in the face.

"Is that all the truth, Ralph, or only a part?" he asked quietly. "Let
me hear the whole please, now that we are about it."

"That is the whole, sir. There's nothing more to be told."

"The money shall be paid, but you must do something for me in return.
We can't talk here. Come to my study when we get home!"

The Squire laid his hand on his son's shoulder with a momentary pressure
as he turned aside to attend to his guests, but Ralph lopped crestfallen
and discomfited. It was one thing to blurt out a disagreeable
confession on the impulse of a moment, and another and very different
one to discuss it in cold blood in the privacy of a study. In the
middle of the night, too! Ralph shivered at the thought. Why on earth
couldn't the Governor be sensible, and wait till next morning? The
money would be paid--that was the main point--all the rest could wait.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

AT THE ORCHARD.

Ralph Percival spent a long hour alone with his father in the chill dawn
of that New Year's morn, and during its passing heard more stern home-
truths than he had ever before listened to from those indulgent lips.
The Squire had not insisted on any arduous work on his son's part: in
his heart he shared Ralph's theory that a man whose life is to be spent
looking after his own land has no need of much scholarly lore. He must
be straight and manly, intelligent enough to understand and move with
the movements of the day, but not so intelligent as to grow discontented
with a circle of admirable, but somewhat humdrum, neighbours. He must
be possessed of courteous and agreeable manners, able on occasion to
take the chair at a meeting, possibly even on a Bench, with credit to
himself and his family.

A 'Varsity education was obviously the best means of developing such
qualities, but who was going to bother his head as to the question of
honours or no honours? There was no reason why the boy should slave as
if he had his living to make by sheer brain effort. The Squire was
prepared to show the utmost leniency towards Ralph's scholastic efforts,
but that he should have persistently