“Well,” he said, after keeping Hugh in an agony of expectation for a minute or two, “there _is_ a chance; but it must depend on whether you do exactly as I wish and approve. In the first place, promise me not to say a word to anybody about this conversation, or even mention that I have been talking to you;--in the second place, come to me in Biggington’s room, as soon as dinner is over.” “Please, sir, may not I tell Percy? I always tell him everything,” pleaded Hugh. “Did you tell him who broke the Doctor’s inkglass?” inquired Norman, sarcastically. Now this inquiry referred to a little affair which had occurred within a week of Hugh’s first arrival at school. Indulging in what propensity common alike to boys and monkeys, viz., of examining everything with their fingers’ ends, Hugh had allowed to fall, and thus broken, Dr. Donkiestir’s own peculiar inkglass. Overwhelmed with the awful nature of the offence he had committed, and expecting, at the very least, to be flogged for the same, the poor child sat down by the side of the devastation he had caused, and commenced the uncomfortable operation of crying his-eyes out. In this forlorn condition he was discovered by Norman, who, without being really kind-hearted, possessed that not uncommon species of negatively selfish good-nature, which leads people to dislike to look on distress, physical or mental. Moreover, the fact of Hugh being a very pretty boy pleased his taste; and therefore interested him. Accordingly, he first inquired the cause of his grief, and then devised a remedy. It so happened that Norman’s own inkbottle and the one which Hugh had just broken, were, as nearly as possible, similar. He knew, moreover, that the Doctor was by no means observant of such minor particulars. He, accordingly, substituted his bottle for the broken one, assisted Hugh to clear away all traces of the accident, and, advising him to keep his own counsel, left him greatly consoled. But Hugh felt a consciousness that there was something in this transaction of which Percy would not approve; and, fearful lest, in his strict sense of honour, he should pronounce it necessary to acquaint the Doctor with his delinquency, his moral courage failed him, and, up to the moment in which Norman asked him the question, he had never revealed the misdeed to his brother. It was the first time he had ever been guilty of that mildest form of lying--suppression of the truth; but the stone of dissimulation, once set rolling, soon gathers force, which the feeble hand that sufficed to put it in motion is powerless to restrain.