"Let me out! let me go!" He fairly shrieked the words at the astonished doorkeeper, who stood aside to let him pass. Up the hill with swift, eager steps he ran, trying still to shut out the ring of that awful oath, the sound of that hateful voice, speaking the name which had so lately become to him the one dear and precious name in earth or heaven. On, on, up the hill, and then down on the other side, stopping finally at the great tree under the hill, just across the pond. Stopping and sitting down, he tried to think. What had he done? He had been warned, he had been tempted, and he had _fallen_. It didn't help him now to think that good men and women were there. Perhaps God had not so plainly shown them the wrong. Perhaps they had never found that verse: "Avoid it, pass not by it." Perhaps--oh, _anything_--it was nothing to him now. This much was certain: he had done wrong. Such a heavy, _heavy_ heart as Tip had to-night. "What _should_ he do? What would Kitty say, if she found it out? Oh, what would Mr. Dewey think, or Mr. Holbrook? and then, above all else, came the thought, What could Jesus, looking down on him now from heaven, what could _He_ think of him? This thought brought the bitter tears, but it brought him also on his knees; and he said,-- "Oh, Jesus Christ, in spite of it all, you _know_ I love you. Won't you forgive me and let me try again?" Long he knelt there, trying to get close to Christ, and his Saviour did not leave him alone. It was only yesterday he had learned the verse, and it came to him softly now: "Thou art a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, of great kindness." In his sore trouble, Tip's lamp had not failed him. CHAPTER XII. "He honoureth them that fear the Lord." Slowly, but surely, as the late autumn days came on, Tip was growing into a better place in the schoolroom, in the opinion of his teachers and his schoolmates. In Mr. Burrows' school, ten was the perfect mark, and _x_ was the very lowest grade a boy could reach. It had once been an everyday joke with Tip, that, being _x_, he must be perfect, because it said in the spelling-book that _x_ was ten. But it had been a good many days since Tip had said "_x_;" the boys had ceased to be amazed when he answered "ten" in prompt, proud tone. They were growing, many of them, to be surprised and sorry for him, when, in his days of failures, he answered, with drooped eyes and very red, ashamed face, "seven," or, it might be, "six." Though he was still anything but a good reader, no one could fail to see that he blundered less and less every day, and Mr. Burrows was growing patient with his blunders, growing helpful in his troubles. The boys saw him working hard over his spelling-book, and few of them now had the meanness to laugh when a word passed him.