t the monitors' meeting, to which
he had been summoned, an unanimous vote of censure had been passed upon
him in his absence, for the opposition which he had always displayed
against his colleagues, and for the disgraceful part which he had taken
in attempting to coerce them by force in the case of Penn. The document
concluded, "We are therefore obliged, though with great and real
reluctance, to take the unusual step of recording in the monitors' book
this vote of censure against Kenrick, fourth monitor, for the bad
example he has set and the great harm he has done, in at once betraying
our interests and violating the first conditions on which he received
his own authority: and we do this, not in a spirit of anger, but solely
in the earnest and affectionate hope that this unanimous condemnation of
his conduct by all his coadjutors may serve to recall him to a sense of
his duty."

Appended were the names of all the monitors--but, no; as he glanced over
the names he saw that one was absent, the name of Walter Evson.
Evidently, it was not because Walter _disapproved_ of the measure, for,
had this been the case, Kenrick knew that his name would have appeared
at the end as a formal dissentient; no, the omission of his name was
due, Kenrick saw, to that same high reserve, and delicate, courteous
consideration which had marked the whole of Walter's behaviour to him
since the day of their disastrous quarrel.

Kenrick appreciated this delicacy, and his eyes were suffused with
tears. Wilton, somewhat cowed by recent occurrences, was the only boy
in his study at the time, and though Kenrick would have been glad to
have some one near him, to whom he could talk of the disgraces which had
fallen so heavily upon him, and to whom he could look for a little
sympathy and counsel, yet to Wilton he felt no inclination to be at all
communicative. There was, indeed, something about Wilton which he could
not help liking, but there was and could be no sort of equality between
them.

"Ken," said Wilton, "do you remember telling me the other day that I was
shedding crocodile tears?--what are crocodile tears? I've always been
wanting to ask you."

"It's just a phrase, Ra, for sham tears; and it was very rude of me,
wasn't it? Herodotus says something about crocodiles; perhaps he'll
explain it for us. I'd look and see if I had my Herodotus here, but I
lost it nearly three years ago."

By one of those curious coincidences, which look st