anner, and glancing carelessly over the table, declined to
take any of the fruit to which the master invited him to help himself.
He determined to be as uncommunicative as possible; avoided all
conversation, and answered Mr Percival's questions on all subjects by
monosyllables, uttered in a disrespectful and nonchalant tone. Yet all
the while he despised himself and was ill at ease. He knew the deep
kindness of the master's intentions, and felt that he ought to be
grateful for the interest shown towards him; but it required a stronger
power and a different method from his own, to exorcise from his heart
the devil of self-will; and besides this, it cannot be denied that in
the first bloom and novelty of sin, in the free exercise of an insolent
liberty, there is a sense of pleasure for many hearts; it is the honey
on the rim of the poison-cup, the bloom on the Dead Sea apple, the
mirage on the scorching waste.

Mr Percival understood him thoroughly, and saw that he must be left to
the bitter teachings of experience. Always fond of Kenrick, he had
never been blind to his many faults of character, and was particularly
displeased with his present manner, which he knew to be only adopted on
purpose to baffle any approach to advice or warning.

"Good morning, Kenrick," he said, rising rather abruptly, while a slight
smile of pity rested on his lips.

"Good morning, sir," said Kenrick; and as he rose in an airy manner to
leave the room, Mr Percival put a hand on each of the boy's shoulders,
and looked him steadily in the face. Kenrick tried to meet the look,
not with the old open gaze of frank and innocent confidence, but with an
expression half shrinking, half defiant. His eyes fell immediately, and
satisfied by this perusal of his features that Kenrick was going wrong,
Mr Percival said only this--

"Your face, my boy, is as a book where men
May read strange matters."

Kenrick had tried to be off-hand and patronising in manner, but the
attempt had failed egregiously, and he felt very uncomfortable as he
left the room where he had so often met with kindness, and which he
_never_ entered on the same terms again.

Meanwhile our two invalids, Walter and Eden, recovered but slowly. But
for the kindness of every one about them their hours would have passed
very wearily in the sickroom. Their tedium was enlivened by constant
visits from Henderson and Power, who never failed to interest Walter by
their school news, a