Mr Samuel Chute did not stop to hear the latter part of the lady's speech, for just then he caught sight of the top of a bonnet passing the window, and he ran into the next room, so as to be able to see its wearer going along the road towards the market-place. "What is the matter, Samoowel? Is it an acciden'?" cried Mrs Chute, running after him. "No, no, nothing, mother," he replied, turning away from the window to meet the lady. "Nothing at all!" "Why, Samoowel," she cried, looking at him with an aspect full of disgust, "don't tell me that--you were staring after that girl!" "I wasn't going to tell you I was looking after her, mother," said the young man sulkily. "No, but I can see for myself," cried Mrs Chute angrily. "The idea of a boy of mine having no more pride than to be running after a stuck-up, dressy body like that, who looks at his poor mother as if she wasn't fit to be used to wipe her shoes on, and I dessey they ain't paid for." "Mother," cried the young man, "if you speak to me like that you'll drive me mad!" "And now he abuses his poor mother, who has been a slave to him all her life!" cried the lady. "Oh, Samoowel, Samoowel, when I'm dead and cold and in my grave, these words of yours'll stand out like fires of reproach, and make you repent and--There, if he hasn't gone after her," she cried furiously; for, finding that her son did not speak, she lowered the apron that she had thrown over her face, slowly and softly, till she found that she was alone, when she jumped up from the chair into which she had thrown herself, ran to the window, and was just in time to see Mr Samuel Chute walking quickly towards the town. "He don't have her if I can prevent it!" cried Mrs Chute viciously, and the expression of her face was not pleasant just then. But Samuel Chute neither heard her words nor saw her looks, as a matter of course, for he was walking steadily after Hazel, wondering whither she was bound. It was the last thing in the world that he would do--watch her, but all the same he wanted to know where she went, and if it was for a walk, why he might turn up by accident just as she was coming back; and then, of course, he could walk with her, and somehow, now that he had so far been taken into her confidence in being trusted to change the school and club money for her, it would be easy to win another step in advance. "I lay twopence she walks out with me arm-in-arm before another month's out," he said triumphantly; "and mother must get over it best way she can." All this while Hazel was some two hundred yards ahead, for the schoolmaster did not attempt to overtake her, but merely noted where she went, and followed. "She's turned off by the low road," said Samuel Chute to himself. "She's going by old Burge's. Well, that is the prettiest walk, and--of course, I could go across by the footpath, and come out in the road this side of Burge's, and meet her, and that would be better than seeming to have followed her."