cannot help distracting him.”
And Harry, who really had a tolerable share of forbearance and consideration, actually obeyed, contenting himself with tossing his book into the air and catching it again, while he paused at the door to give his last unsolicited assistance. “Decline oppossum you say. I’ll tell you how: O-possum re-poses up a gum tree. O-pot-you-I will, says the O-posse of Yankees, come out to ketch him. Opossum poses them and declines in O-pot-esse by any manner of means of o-potting-di-do-dum, was quite oppositum-oppotitu, in fact, quite contrairy.”
Richard, with the gravity of a victim, heard this sally of schoolboy wit, which threw Ethel back on the sofa in fits of laughing, and declaring that the Opossum declined, not that he was declined; but, in the midst of the disturbance thus created, Tom stepped up to her, and whispered, “Do tell me, Ethel!”
“Indeed I shan’t,” said she. “Why don’t you say fairly if you don’t know?”
He was obliged to confess his ignorance, and Richard made him conjugate the whole verb opponor from beginning to end, in which he wanted a good deal of help.
Ethel could not help saying, “How did you find out the meaning of that word, Tom, if you didn’t look out the verb?”
“I—don’t know,” drawled Tom, in the voice, half sullen, half piteous, which he always assumed when out of sorts.
“It is very odd,” she said decidedly; but Richard took no notice, and proceeded to the other lessons, which went off tolerably well, except the arithmetic, where there was some great misunderstanding, into which Ethel did not enter for some time. When she did attend, she perceived that Tom had brought a right answer, without understanding the working of the sum, and that Richard was putting him through it. She began to be worked into a state of dismay and indignation at Tom’s behaviour, and Richard’s calm indifference, which made her almost forget ‘Jane Sparks’, and long to be alone with Richard; but all the world kept coming into the room, and going out, and she could not say what was in her mind till after dinner, when, seeing Richard go up into Margaret’s room, she ran after him, and entering it, surprised Margaret, by not beginning on her books, but saying at once, “Ritchie, I wanted to speak to you about Tom. I am sure he shuffled about those lessons.”
“I am afraid he does,” said Richard, much concerned.
“What, do you mean that it is often so?”
“Much too often,” said Richard; “but I have never been able to detect him; he is very sharp, and has some underhand way of preparing his lessons that I cannot make out.”
“Did you know it, Margaret?” said Ethel, astonished not to see her sister looked shocked as well as sorry.
“Yes,” said Margaret, “Ritchie and I have often talked it over, and tried to think what was to be done.”
“Dear me! why don’t you tell papa? It is such a terrible thing!”
“So it is,” said Margaret, “but we have nothing positive or tangible to accuse Tom of; we don’t know what he does, and have never caught him out.”
“I am sure he must have found out the meaning of that oppositum in some wrong way—if he had looked it out, he would only have found opposite. Nothing but opponor could have shown him the rendering which he made.”
“That’s like what I have said almost every day,” said Richard, “but there we are—I can’t get any further.”
“Perhaps he guesses by the context,” said Margaret.
“It would be impossible to do so always,” said both the Latin scholars at once.
“Well, I can’t think how you can take it so quietly,” said Ethel. “I would have told papa the first moment, and put a stop to it. I have a great mind to do so, if you won’t.
“Ethel, Ethel, that would never do!” exclaimed Margaret, “pray don’t. Papa would be so dreadfully grieved and angry with poor Tom.”
“Well, so he deserves,” said Ethel.
“You don’t know what it is to see papa angry,” said Richard.
“Dear me, Richard!” cried Ethel, who thought she knew pretty well what his sharp words were. “I’m sure papa never was angry with me, without making me love him more, and, at least, want to be better.”
“You are a girl,” said Richard.
“You are higher spirited, and shake off things faster,” said Margaret.
“Why, what do you think he would do to Tom?”
“I think he would be so very angry, that Tom, who, you know, is timid and meek, would be dreadfully frightened,” said Richard.
“That’s just what he ought to be, frightened out of these tricks.”
“I am afraid it would frighten him into them still more,” said Richard, “and perhaps give him such a dread of my father as would prevent him from ever being open with him.”
“Besides, it would make papa so very unhappy,” added Margaret. “Of course, if poor dear Tom had been found out in any positive deceit, we ought to mention it at once, and let him be punished; but while it is all vague suspicion, and of what papa has such a horror of, it would only grieve him, and make him constantly anxious, without, perhaps, doing Tom any good.”
“I think all that is expediency,” said Ethel, in her bluff, abrupt way.
“Besides,” said Richard, “we have nothing positive to accuse him of, and if we had, it would be of no use. He will be at school in three weeks, and there he would be sure to shirk, even if he left it off here. Every one does, and thinks nothing of it.”
“Richard!” cried both sisters, shocked. “You never did?”
“No, we didn’t, but most others do, and not bad fellows either. It is not the way of boys to think much of those things.”
“It is mean—it is dishonourable—it is deceitful!” cried Ethel.
“I know it is very wrong, but you’ll never get the general run of boys to think so,” said Richard.
“Then Tom ought not to go to school at all till he is well armed against it,” said Ethel.
“That can’t be helped,” said Richard. “He will get clear of it in time, when he knows better.”
“I will talk to him,” said Margaret, “and, indeed, I think it would be better than worrying papa.”
“Well,” said Ethel, “of course I shan’t tell, because it is not my business, but I think papa ought to know everything about us, and I don’t like your keeping anything back. It is being almost as bad as Tom himself.”
With which words, as Flora entered, Ethel marched out of the room in displeasure, and went down, resolved to settle Jane Sparks by herself.
“Ethel is out of sorts to-day,” said Flora. “What’s the matter?”
“We have had a discussion,” said Margaret. “She has been terribly shocked by finding out what we have often thought about poor little Tom, and she thinks we ought to tell papa. Her principle is quite
