"I beg your pardon, my dear. But it doesn't matter. Simmons was eaten by a tiger, ten years ago. And I hope he agreed with him, for he never did with anybody else I ever heard of. He was the worst boy I ever knew.--'You stole Simmons's watch. Where is it?' He fell on his knees, as white as a sheet. 'I sold it,' he said, in a voice choked with terror. 'God help you, my boy!' I exclaimed. He burst out crying. 'Where did you sell it?' He told me. 'Where's the money you got for it?' 'That's all I have left,' he answered, pulling out a small handful of shillings and halfcrowns. 'Give it me,' I said. He gave it me at once. 'Now you go to your lesson, and hold your tongue.' I got a sovereign of my own to make up the sum--I could ill spare it, sir, but the boy could worse spare his character--and I hurried off to the place where he had sold the watch. To avoid scandal, I was forced to pay the man the whole price, though I daresay an older man would have managed better. At all events, I brought it home. I contrived to put it in the boy's own box, so that the whole affair should appear to have been only a trick, and then I gave the culprit a very serious talking-to. He never did anything of the sort again, and died an honourable man and a good officer, only three months ago, in India. A thousand times over did he repay me the money I had spent for him, and he left me this gold watch in his will--a memorial, not so much of his fault, as of his deliverance from some of its natural consequences." The schoolmaster pulled out the watch as he spoke, and we all looked at it with respect. It was a simple story and simply told. But I was pleased to see that Adela took some interest in it. I remembered that, as a child, she had always liked better to be told a story than to have any other amusement whatever. And many a story I had had to coin on the spur of the moment for the satisfaction of her childish avidity for that kind of mental bull's-eye. When we gentlemen were left alone, and the servants had withdrawn, Mr. Bloomfield said to our host: "I am sorry to see Miss Cathcart looking so far from well, colonel. I hope you have good advice for her." "Dr. Wade has been attending her for some time, but I don't think he's doing her any good." "Don't you think it might be well to get the new doctor to see her? He's quite a remarkable man, I assure you." "What! The young fellow that goes flying about the country in boots and breeches?"