our
position of monitor and head of a house. It would be a strong step, but
not stronger than you deserve. I am alone prevented by a deep and
sincere wish that you should yet recover from your fall; and that, by
knowing that some slight trust is still reposed in you, you may do
something to prove yourself worthy of that trust, and to regain our
confidence. I content myself, therefore, with putting you from your
present place to the _lowest_ on the list of monitors--a public mark of
my displeasure, which I am sure you will feel to be just; and I must
also remove you from the headship of your house--a post which I grieve
to know that you have very grievously misused. I shall put Whalley in
your place, as it happens that no monitor can be conveniently spared.
He, therefore, is now the head of Mr Noel's house; and, so far, you
will be amenable to his authority, which, I hope, you will not attempt
to resist."

Kenrick, very full of bitter thoughts, hung his head, and said nothing.
To know Dr Lane was to love and to respect him; and this poor
fatherless boy _did_ feel very great pain to have incurred his anger.

"I am unwilling, Kenrick," continued the Doctor, "to dismiss you without
adding one word of kindness. You know, my dear boy, that I have your
welfare very closely at heart, and that I once felt for you a warm and
personal regard; I trust that I may yet be able to bestow it upon you
again. Go and use your time better; remember that you are a monitor;
remember that the well-being of many others depends in no slight measure
on your conscientious discharge of your duties; check yourself in a
career which only leads fast to ruin; and thank God, Kenrick, that you
are not actually expelled as those three boys have been, but that you
have still time and opportunity to amend, and to win again the character
you once had."

Turned out of his headship to give way to a fifth-form boy, turned down
to the bottom of the monitors, poor Kenrick felt unspeakably degraded;
but he was forced to endure a yet more bitter mortification. Before
going to Dr Lane he had received a message that he was wanted in the
sixth-form room, and, with a touch of his old pride, had answered, "Tell
them I won't come." Hardly had he reached his own study after leaving
the Doctor, when Henderson entered with a grave face, and saying, "I am
sorry, Kenrick, to be the bearer of this," handed to him a folded sheet
of paper. Opening it he found that, a