Wisely or unwisely, Trace, in his ill-nature, forgot his ordinary caution, his long-continued silence, and disclosed the suspicions attaching to Mr. Henry in regard to the lost pencil. It was so delightful a temptation to speak against him! Loftus came back during the recital, and curled his lip in silent condemnation of Trace. "Look here," said Sir Simon, wrathfully, "I'd rather suspect one of you." Loftus went away again without making any answer. Trace smiled very grandly compassionate. "You were always suspicious, Trace," continued Sir Simon; "it's in your nature to be so, as it was in your poor mother's. He's a kindly, honest gentleman, so far as I've seen of him. Steal a pencil, indeed! Who rose the report? You?" "There has not been any report," said Trace, with composure. "Lamb saw him before the study window that night, and we wondered whether he had come in and taken it. The doubt was hushed up, and has died away." "Not hushed up as far as you go, it seems. Raymond, I'd——" Talbot and Dick Loftus came running in, and Sir Simon changed the private bearings of the subject, for the more open one of Raymond's pride, as he called it, in not accepting Mr. Henry's offer. "Giving him two hours a day in the holidays!" exclaimed Talbot. "I wish it had been made to me!" "You do!" cried Sir Simon. "I suppose you hope to get the prize yourself?" "I shall try my best for it, sir," said the boy, laughing. "Seventy pounds a year for three years! It would take me to Oxford; and there's no other chance of my getting there." Holidays for everybody but poor Mr. Henry! He was slaving on. He took George Paradyne for two hours a day; he took another boy, one of the outsiders, who was poor, friendless, and very backward; receiving nothing for either; he gave Miss Rose Brabazon her daily lessons, French one day, German the next, alternately; he went to Mrs. Gall's, to drill three of her little boys, not out at school yet, in Latin and Greek; and he worked hard at his translation, which translation was a very difficult one to get on quickly with, necessitating continual references to abstruse works; for Mr. Henry discovered numerous errors in the original, and desired, in his conscientiousness, to set them right in the English version. He was at home one morning, a few days after the holidays began, buried in his translation books, marking the faults in Miss Rose Brabazon's last French dictation—and he believed nobody else could have made so many—when Sir Simon Orville walked in. The sweet, kind, patient expression in Mr. Henry's face had always struck him: very patient and wearied did it look to-day. It was Christmas Eve. "Hard at work? But this is holiday time, Mr. Henry." Mr. Henry smiled and brightened up. "Some of us don't get the chance of any holiday, Sir Simon," he cheerfully said, as if it were a good joke.