t. I fancy the thought in his mind at this moment is that you
are the most unjust person at Crofton."

"I! unjust!"

"Yes; so he thinks. When you first came, you and he were companions. You
found comfort in each other while all the rest were strangers to you.
You were glad to hear, by the hour together, what he had to tell you
about India, and his voyages and travels. Now he feels himself lonely
and forsaken, while he sees you happy with a friend. He thinks it hard
that you should desert him because he owes you a shilling, when he was
cheated quite as much as you."

"Because he owes me a shilling!" cried Hugh, starting to his feet, "as
if----"

Once more he had nearly fallen from his perch. Firth caught him; and
then asked him how Holt should think otherwise than as he did, since
Hugh had been his constant companion up to that Saturday afternoon, and
had hardly spoken to him since.

Hugh protested that the shilling had nothing to do with the matter; and
he never meant to take more than sixpence from Holt, because he thought
Lamb was the one who ought to pay the shilling. The thing was, he did
not, and could not, like Holt half so well as Dale. He could not make a
friend of Holt, because he wanted spirit--he had no courage. What could
he do? He could not pretend to be intimate with Holt when he did not
like him; and if he explained that the shilling had nothing to do with
the matter, he could not explain how it really was, when the fault was
in the boy's character, and not in his having given any particular
offence. What could he do?

Firth thought he could only learn not to expect, anywhere out of the
bounds of home, what he thought justice. He must, of course, try himself
to be just to everybody; but he must make up his mind in school, as men
have to do in the world, to be misunderstood--to be wrongly valued; to
be blamed when he felt himself the injured one; and praised when he knew
he did not deserve it.

"But it is so hard," said Hugh.

"And what do people leave home for but to learn hard lessons?"

"But, still, if it were not for----"

"For what? Do you see any comfort under it?" asked Firth, fixing his
eyes on Hugh.

Hugh nodded, without speaking.

"That One understands us who cannot be unjust!" whispered Firth. "I am
glad you feel that."

"Even home would be bad enough without that," said Hugh. "And what would
school be?"

"Or the world?" added Firth. "But do not get cross, and complain again.