have a month's holiday, or a month's work, before leaving home.
She had to go out this morning. He might go with her, if he liked; and,
as they returned, they would sit down in the Temple Garden, and she
would tell him all about the plan.

Hugh liked this beginning of his new prospects. He ran to be made neat
for his walk with his mother. He knew he must have the wet curl on his
forehead twice over to-day; but he comforted himself with hoping that
there would be no time at Crofton for him to be kept standing, to have
his hair done so particularly, and to be scolded all the while, and then
kissed, like a baby, at the end.

CHAPTER III.

MICHAELMAS-DAY COME.

Hugh was about to ask his mother, again and again during their walk, why
Mr. Tooke let him go to Crofton before he was ten; but Mrs. Proctor was
grave and silent; and though she spoke kindly to him now and then, she
did not seem disposed to talk. At last, they were in the Temple Garden;
and they sat down where there was no one to overhear them; and then Hugh
looked up at his mother. She saw, and told him, what it was that he
wanted to ask.

"It is on account of the little boys themselves," said she, "that Mr.
Tooke does not wish to have them very young, now that there is no kind
lady in the house who could be like a mother to them."

"But there is Mrs. Watson. Phil has told me a hundred things about Mrs.
Watson."

"Mrs. Watson is the housekeeper. She is careful, I know, about the boys'
health and comfort; but she has no time to attend to the younger ones,
as Mrs. Tooke did,--hearing their little troubles, and being a friend to
them like their mothers at home."

"There is Phil----"

"Yes. You will have Phil to look to. But neither Phil, nor any one else,
can save you from some troubles you are likely to have from being the
youngest."

"Such as Mr. Tooke told me his boy had;--being put on the top of a high
wall, and plagued when he was tired: and all that. I don't think I
should much mind those things."

"So we hope, and so we believe. Your fault is not cowardice----"

Mrs. Proctor so seldom praised anybody that her words of esteem went a
great way. Hugh first looked up at her and then down on the grass,--his
cheeks glowed so. She went on--

"You have faults,--faults which give your father and me great pain; and
though, you are not cowardly about being hurt in your body, you sadly
want courage of a better kind,--courage to mend the weakness of