If the memory of pain could be effaced by after-happiness, the remainder of this day would have amply sufficed to blot out the past week. Never did Cecil feel more glad than when his mother kissed him, called him her own darling boy, and at his request forgave Jessie's escapade, and gave her and Frances a week's holiday, that he might have as much of their company as he chose. And on the following Sunday, when he took his place in the choir again, and Mr. Yorke came to dinner at the Rectory, and all was thankful rejoicing, that sorrowful Sunday on which he had felt as if the whole world were against him seemed already far away. The trial was gone by, and some of the effects it had left behind it were very pleasant. But for it, Cecil felt he never could have known Mr. Yorke so well, nor his own little sister Jessie. They were his especial friends from henceforth, in a way which they had never been before, even though Jessie had always been regarded by Percy and others as 'Cecil's particular chum.' Percy himself had seemed hitherto at an immeasurable distance from Cecil, and had generally appeared to expect to be treated with the same sort of respect as would have been shown to a school 'senior;' but now, wonderful to relate, a change came over him, and he condescended to unbend not only a little, but a very great deal. It actually seemed as if he had begun to respect Cecil! No one but a schoolboy, with an admired and venerated elder brother rather given to snubbing, can quite realize how astonishing this change appeared to the person most concerned. For Percy to invite Cecil to come out fishing with him, in the genial tone of an equal who really cared for his companionship, instead of ordering him in a lordly way to take his tackle down to the river for him, was something so unexpected and flattering, that it went nearer to turning Cecil's head than anything that had happened yet. Perhaps it really might have done so, but for the wholesome lessons the boy had learned during his time of humiliation. These fishings with Percy became a sort of institution during that week, which Jessie had rather counted on for having Cecil all to herself. 'Francie doesn't care, because she wants to do her gardening; but what made me like so to have holidays, was only that I might go about with Cecil, and now he goes off with Percy and doesn't want me!' thought the poor little maiden, in rather an injured way, as she sat forlornly in the wide window-seat on Wednesday morning, watching the retreating figures of her brothers. Spite of all her unselfishness, that sense of injury _would_ come, and was very disagreeable.