m and Hugh.

"Are you there, Phil?" cried Hugh, pulling aside the curtain.

"Yes," said Phil; "how do you do this morning?"

"Oh, very well. Come here. I want to know ever so many things. Have you
heard yet anything real and true about the new usher?"

"No," replied Phil. "But I have no doubt it is really Mr. Crabbe who is
coming; and that he will be here after Christmas. Why, Hugh, you look
just the same as usual!"

"So I am, just the same, except under this thing," pointing to the hoop,
or basket, which was placed over his limb, to keep off the weight of the
bed-clothes. "I am not hurt anywhere else, except this bruise;" and he
showed a black bruise on his arm, such as almost any school-boy can
show, almost any day.

"That's nothing," pronounced Phil.

"The other was, though, I can tell you," declared Hugh.

"Was it very, very bad? Worse than you had ever fancied?"

"Oh! yes. I could have screamed myself to death. I did not, though. Did
you hear me, did anybody hear me call out?"

"I heard you--just outside the door there--before the doctors came."

"Ah! but not after, not while uncle was here. He cried so! I could not
call out while he was crying so. Where were you when they were doing
it?"

"Just outside the door there. I heard you once--only once; and that was
not much."

"But how came you to be there? It was past bedtime. Had you leave to be
up so late?"

"I did not ask it; and nobody meddled with me."

"Was anybody there with you?"

"Yes, Firth. Dale would not. He was afraid, and he kept away."

"Oh! is not he very sorry?"

"Of course. Nobody can help being sorry."

"Do they all seem sorry? What did they do? What do they say?"

"Oh! they are very sorry; you must know that."

"Anybody more than the rest?"

"Why, some few of them cried; but I don't know that that shows them to
be more sorry. It is some people's way to cry--and others not."

Hugh wished much to learn something about Tooke; but, afraid of showing
what was in his thoughts, he went off to quite another subject.

"Do you know, Phil," said he, "you would hardly believe it; but I have
never been half so miserable as I was the first day or two I came here?
I don't care now, half so much, for all the pain, and for being lame,
and----Oh! but I can never be a soldier or a sailor--I can never go
round the world! I forgot that."

And poor Hugh hid his face in his pillow.

"Never mind!" said Phil, stooping over him very kindly. "