and had been glad when Tony was put to room with him. He saw Reggie’s growing devotion to Deering, and was sorry that Tony did not respond to a greater extent. Morris felt that Carroll needed the strengthening influence of a strong unselfish friendship with the right sort of boy to help make a man of him. Occasionally Morris had the two boys with others in his rooms for tea or on Saturday nights for a rarebit and a bit of supper, but otherwise occasions did not present themselves for his getting to know them better. He was sorry for this, but saw no very satisfactory way of making them. By the end of January it seemed to him that Reggie was in quite the worst attitude that he had ever been, thoroughly indifferent to the work and life of the school. CHAPTER VIII A MIDNIGHT LARK That winter proved to be a hard one, with frequent snows and violent winds, which put an end to the skating within a few weeks after Christmas, and left the majority of the boys with no very satisfactory pastime in the free afternoons. There was sliding down Deal Hill a good part of the time, and to Tony, who never before had experienced the pleasures of a northern winter, this was great fun; but after a time it palled upon his two cronies, Jimmie and Kit, and at their suggestion surreptitious visits to the cave in Lovel’s Woods became more frequent. Perhaps that this was a forbidden pleasure added a keener zest than they otherwise would have taken in it, and that several boys had recently been caught in the Woods and punished severely gave an element of danger to their visits that made them even more fascinating. Aside from the disobedience that these visits involved, they were innocent enough. The boys, having reported at call-over for a walk, would skirt the beaches and enter the Woods from the east, completely out of range of the school and comparatively safe from detection unless they chanced to encounter prefects or masters walking in the Woods themselves. The indefatigable Mr. Gray often bent his steps in that direction, but to the school’s intense delight, without noticeable result. The snows were so heavy and the walking consequently so difficult that the vigilance of masters and prefects at last completely relaxed. From that time on the boys who cared for the trouble had a fairly clear field. Our friends were fortunate in having a cave on the extreme eastern edge of the woods, so that the approach from the beach was easy. Once this was gained, they made a fire, cooked sausages, fried pan-cakes of an extremely leathery quality, and made coffee that certainly they would not have drunk in any other place. Tony had told Carroll of their exploits, and had even invited him to pay them a visit and partake of their “feed,” an invitation that was decisively declined. “It is certainly not worth while,” he replied, with a smile, “to run the risk of getting the Doctor quite sour on me for the pleasure of partaking of the results of your culinary skill.”