“If you do,” he said, “you will have broken the trust reposed in you, and proved yourself a mean-spirited, cowardly child, quite unfit for the service we require of you, or the pleasure with which we propose to reward you;--tell your brother, and you lose the play.” Poor Hugh! his better nature made one final struggle, but he had dallied with the temptation till it had obtained too firm a hold on his imagination to be shaken off; and so, like many folks older and wiser than himself, who have indulged in a reprehensible longing for some forbidden fruit till the appetite has grown too strong to be resisted, he fell. “I _will_ promise,” he said. “I do so want to see the play, and you will take care of me if the Doctor is angry, Mr. Biggington?” “Oh, decidedly; both myself and Stradwick,” was the reply. “Stradwick and the Doctor are hand and glove just now, because Straddy’s such a dab at Euripides.” This insinuation referred to the uncomfortable fact, that the head-master had that morning informed Stradwick, in consequence of his total inability to construe the works of the ancient Greek in question, that if after another week he did not perceive a very decided improvement, he should be under the disagreeable necessity of degrading him to the fifth form. Stradwick, therefore, hung his head sheepishly as he echoed-- “Oh yes, decidedly.” “We understand each other, then, and had better agree to meet here, prepared to start, at a quarter to six,” observed Norman. A general assent was given, and the conspirators separated. Norman glanced at his victim; there was a determined look in the boy’s face, which gave assurance that he would go through with the task he had undertaken. Resolution was one of the few qualities Norman reverenced, and for the moment he repented the evil into which he was leading the child; but the two strongest passions of his nature, ambition and revenge, were linked with his scheme for that evening, and he could not relinquish it. “Courage, little one,” he said, laying his hand on Hugh’s curly pate; “if you and I live, and, as something here”--and he touched his forehead as he spoke--“tells me will be the case, I achieve greatness, I will not forget this evening. Silence and courage!” CHAPTER VIII.--NORMAN’S REVENGE.