like a dull red gleam on a dark sea. For the rest, thick home-made candles of a torch shape fixed into iron sconces round the walls illumined the room, and burned with unsteady flare, giving rise to curious lights and shadows as though ghostly figures were passing to and fro, ruffling the air with their unseen presences. Priscilla Priday, her wizened yellow face just now reddened to the tint of a winter apple by her recent exertions in the kitchen, was not so much engaged in eating her supper as in watching her master. Her beady brown eyes roved from him to the slight delicate girl beside him with inquisitive alertness. She felt and saw that the old man's thoughts were far away, and that something of an unusual nature was troubling his mind. Priscilla was an odd-looking creature but faithful;--her attachments were strong, and her dislikes only a shade more violent,--and just now she entertained very uncomplimentary sentiments towards "them doctors" who had, as she surmised, put her master out of sorts with himself, and caused anxiety to the "darling child," as she invariably called Innocent when recommending her to the guidance of the Almighty in her daily and nightly prayers. Meanwhile the noise at the supper table grew louder and more incessant, and sundry deep potations of home-brewed ale began to do their work. One man, seated near Ned Landon, was holding forth in very slow thick accents on the subject of education: "Be eddicated!" he said, articulating his words with difficulty,--"That's what I says, boys! Be eddicated! Then everything's right for us! We can kick all the rich out into the mud and take their goods and enjoy 'em for ourselves. Eddication does it! Makes us all we wants to be,--members o' Parli'ment and what not! I've only one boy,--but he'll be eddicated as his father never was--" "And learn to despise his father!" said Robin, suddenly, his clear voice ringing out above the other's husky loquacity. "You're right! That's the best way to train a boy in the way he should go!" There was a brief silence. Then came a fresh murmur of voices and Ned Landon's voice rose above them. "I don't agree with you, Mr. Clifford," he said--"There's no reason why a well-educated lad should despise his father." "But he often does," said Robin--"reason or no reason." "Well, you're educated yourself," retorted Landon, with a touch of envy,--"You won a scholarship at your grammar school, and you've been to a University." "What's that done for me?" demanded Robin, carelessly,--"Where has it put me? Just nowhere, but exactly where I might have stood all the time. I didn't learn farming at Oxford!" "But you didn't learn to despise your father either, did you, sir?" queried one of the farm hands, respectfully. "My father's dead," answered Robin, curtly,--"and I honour his memory." "So your own argument goes to the wall!" said Landon. "Education has not made you think less of him."