There was some justification for hope on her part, because young Harris was really a very industrious, plodding fellow, and had always given a good account of himself. He had not half Harry's brains, of course, but he had great application and perseverance, and the moral of the hare and tortoise fable is often exemplified in these cases. Especially when the hare is such an all-round genius as my boy, a prize-taker for goal-kicking, the mile handicap and the long jump, as well as for work in class. Several times I had heard Harry say, with quite a serious air, that the only one he was afraid of was Harris, and they stuck very close together through the examinations, as far as the figures were known. So when she crushed into the seat in front of me, gorgeously dressed and beaming, nodding to right and left, I saw how it was. She was prepared for any amount of envious notice and congratulation, quite thinking she was going to outshine me. I smiled--I could not help it. But I was glad afterwards that she had not seen me smile. I was also glad that Tom had not been able to accompany us this time, though grieved for the cause--an accident to his foot while tree-chopping. Our proximity to the maker of so much trouble in the past, as to which we were still sore and reticent, might have rendered the situation uncomfortable and altered its development altogether. Harry had escorted me and his eldest sister--she a perfect dream, though I say it, in pink cambric and a white muslin hat--and had now left us to go and sit with his comrades at the back of the hall, whence a deafening noise arose continuously, most exhilarating to hear. Dear lads! I screwed my head round to look and laugh at their delightful antics, and the figure of my fine boy leading all the revelry, until Phyllis's face showed her sense of the indecorum of the proceeding. Children are so dreadfully proper where their parents are concerned, and I am always forgetting that I have to sit up and look dignified if I would have their approval and respect.