y there, sitting on the fork of two branches, reading.

"Have you a mind to come up?" asked the boy.

"Yes, sir, I should like to try to climb a tree. I never did."

"Well, this is a good one to begin with. I'll lend you a hand; shall I?"

"Thank you, sir."

"Don't call me, 'sir.' I'm only a school-boy, like you. I am Dan Firth.
Call me Firth, as I am the only one of the name here. You are little
Proctor, I think--Proctor's brother."

"Yes: but, Firth, I shall pull you down, if I slip."

"Not you: but I'll come down, and so send you up to my seat, which is
the safest to begin with. Stand off."

Firth swung himself down, and then, showing Hugh where to plant his
feet, and propping him when he wanted it, he soon seated him on the
fork, and laughed good-naturedly when Hugh waved his cap over his head,
on occasion of being up in a tree. He let him get down and up again
several times, till he could do it quite alone, and felt that he might
have a seat here whenever it was not occupied by any one else.

While Hugh sat in the branches, venturing to leave hold with one hand,
that he might fan his hot face with his cap, Firth stood on the rail of
the palings, holding by the tree, and talking to him. Firth told him
that this was the only tree the boys were allowed to climb, since Ned
Reeve had fallen from the great ash, and hurt his spine. He showed what
trees he had himself climbed before that accident; and it made Hugh
giddy to think of being within eight feet of the top of the lofty elm in
the church-yard, which Firth had thought nothing of mounting.

"Did anybody teach you?" asked Hugh.

"Yes; my father taught me to climb, when I was younger than you."

"And had you anybody to teach you games and things, when you came here?"

"No: but I had learned a good deal of that before I came; and so I soon
fell into the ways here. Have you anybody to teach you?"

"No----yes----why, no. I thought Phil would have showed me things; but
he does not seem to mind me at all." And Hugh bit his lip, and fanned
himself faster.

"Ah! he attends to you more than you think."

"Does he? Then why----but what good does it do me?"

"What good? His holding off makes you push your own way. It lets you
make friends for yourself."

"I have no friends here," said Hugh.

"Yes, you have. Here am I. You would not have had me, if you had been at
Proctor's heels at this moment."

"Will you be my friend, then?"

"That I will."

"What, a