words Mackworth had ever addressed to Kenrick were-- "You new fellow, what's your father?" "My father is dead," said Kenrick in a low tone. "Then what _was_ he?" "He was curate of Fuzby." "Curate was he; a slashing trade that," was the brutal reply. "Curate of Fuzby? are you sure it isn't Fusty?" Kenrick looked at him with a strange glowing of the eyes, which, so far from disconcerting Mackworth, only made him chuckle at the success of his taunt. He determined to exercise the lancet of his tongue again, and let fresh blood if possible. "Well, glare-eyes! so you didn't like my remark?" Kenrick made no answer, and Mackworth continued-- "What charity-boy has left you his off-cast clothes? May I ask if your jacket was intended to serve also as a looking-glass? and is it the custom in your part of the country not to wear breeches below the knees?" There was a corrosive malice in this speech so intense that Kenrick never saw Mackworth without recalling the shame and anguish it had caused. Fresh from home, full of quick sensibility, feeling ridicule with great keenness, Kenrick was too much pained by these words even for anger. He had hung his head and slunk away. For days after, until, at his most earnest entreaty, his mother had incurred much privation to afford him a new and better suit, he had hardly dared to lift up his face. He had fancied himself a mark for ridicule, and the sense of shabbiness and poverty had gone far to crush his spirit. After a time he recovered, but never since that day had he deigned to speak to Mackworth a single word. He was surprised, therefore, at the obtrusive impertinence of these two fellows, and when next he passed them, he surveyed them from head to foot with a haughty and indignant stare. The moment after he heard them burst into a laugh, and begin talking very loudly. "It was the rummiest vehicle you ever saw," he heard Jones say; "a cart, I assure you--nothing more or less, and drawn by the very scraggiest scarecrow of a blind horse." He caught no more as the distance between them lessened, but he heard Jones bubbling over with a stupid giggle at some remark of Mackworth's about _glare-eyes_ being drawn by a _blind_ horse. "How rude those fellows are, Ken," said Whalley; "what do they mean by it?" "Dogs!" said Kenrick, stamping angrily, while his face was scarlet with rage. "If they're trying to annoy you, Ken," said Whalley, who was a very gentle, popular boy, "don't give them the triumph of seeing that they succeed. They're only Varnish and White-Feather--we all know what _they're_ like." "Dogs!" said Kenrick again; "I should like to pitch into them." "Let's leave them, and go and sit by the river, Ken." "No, Whalley. I'm sure they mean to insult me, and I want to hear how, and why." There was no difficulty in doing this, for Jones and his ally were again approaching, and Jones was talking purposely loud. "I never could bear the fellow; gives himself such airs."