I had done it because it  was not a good one,
and bought a large one for him with the most
awfully painted sides and a power of
humming which would have done honour to a
beehive. He was a sickly, delicate, fair-
haired fellow, with dark blue eyes, that filled
with tears on the slightest provocation. He
generally shed tears when he talked of home;
so Grubb made great fun of his weakness.
He always cleaned Grubb's shoes, and when
they were polished to his satisfaction he used
to sit with the blacking-brush in his hand
ready to launch it at the little boy's head,
and make him describe all his family, from
his father, who was afflicted with the gout, to
his sister Mary, whom he described as a
perfect angel. As he cried while he branched out
into these descriptions, Grubb and his intimate
friends enjoyed the joke exceedingly. He used
to come and sit down beside me at a table in
the hall after he had been forced to make these
revelations, and lean his little head upon my
shoulder till he fell asleep. I advised him to
complain to the master—a Doctor of Divinity,
who had written Latin notes to the Gospel of
St. John—and the master told him he was a
fool for his pains; and when all the fellows
went up, one after another, and assured the
Doctor that Grubb was an excellent youth,
and very kind to little boys, Knowlsworth
was flogged for false accusation, and very
generally cut by the school, and, in fact, so
was I, which I very much regretted, for I
looked up with unfeigned veneration, not
unmixed with envy, to those high-spirited
young gentlemen who carried into practice
the lessons of worldly wisdom which were
wasted upon me. How often I had been told
to carry my head above everyone else, to
vindicate my position, and make myself feared
and respected in the school. There was not
one of us who did not fear and respect
Herbert Grubb except little Harry Knowlsworth,
but he was a curious boy, and had not
received the same kind of lessons at home as
the rest of us. He said Grubb was a bully,
and he was sure was a coward: now, his
papa had told him a coward couldn't be a
gentleman, and a bully couldn't be a Christian.
I wondered at the time if old Mr. Knowlsworth
knew that Grubb's father had married the
daughter of an Irish earl, and that she was
really Lady Glendower Grubb? How could
her son then not be a gentleman? I knew
he was a Christian, for he borrowed my Bible
and Prayer-book, and I never liked to ask
him for them again. We were two Pariahs,
Harry Knowlsworth and I, and I daresay he
did me a great deal of harm, for, whereas,
being four or five years older, I ought to have
raised him up to my level and have taught
him the vices and knowingnesses of my more
advanced period of life, he dragged me down
to his, and I never rose above nine or ten
years old all the time he was at school. But
this was not long. He began to be ill in the
middle of the half-year, and the cruelty of
Herbert Grubb and his friends to increase.
They now insisted on his describing his sister
Mary not as the charming creature the little
boy represented her, but as hump-backed and
with a stutter, with moral qualities to match.
Nothing would tempt Harry to give utterance
to the terrible names the coterie of wits and
tyrants affixed to the object of the child's
affection. So brushes were flung at his head,
and the clothes torn off his bed, and water
thrown on his face, and his hands held till
they blistered close to the fire, but he would
not say that Mary was a thief, or had run
away with the groom, or was anything but
the best of beings, and as I sometimes shared
in the punishments inflicted on our obduracy,
for I was as firmly persuaded as Harry of
the angelic nature of his sister, we used to
retire to remote corners of the playground,
and there the heroic brother would tell me
for hours what a kind, clever, admirable girl
his sister was, and what a noble, generous old
man his father; and then he used to take my
hand, and then, on looking carefully round
and seeing no one near, he used to press it to
his lips and say that, next to those two in all
the world, he liked me best, and I used to
feel it a great consolation, amidst the contempt
of all the other boys, that this little fellow
was attached to me. However, we had not
time to grow more intimate, for he became
rapidly worse, and was sent home a month
before the holidays began. I got a letter
from him to say that his sister was at school
in France or Italy, I forget which, but was
expected home in three months, and then he
would tell her all about my kindness, and
begging me not to believe the things that
Grubb and his companions had said about
her, but to like her for his sake.

But he did not live to see the sister he was
so fond of. He sent me a beautiful locket
that Mary had given him, and I was to wear
it always, and never forget him if we never
met again. And just when we were going
down, the Doctor, in shaking hands with
Grubb, said, " You will be sorry to hear
your little favourite Knowlsworth is dead—a
delicate boy, and I believe you were very
kind to him, only, perhaps, a little too rough
(as high-spirited young gentlemen often are)
in your play. Good-bye—my respectful duty
to Lady Glendower."

As to me, nobody took any notice, luckily,
of how I bore the news. Grubb bore it very
well. He said, "Ah! is he dead, poor fellow?
I'm glad now I was always so attentive to
him." I don't think the conscience begins to
have any power till manhood. Here was a
boy who should have felt like a murderer,
and really believed himself to have been kind
to the victim of his cruelty. I could not help
having some thoughts like that in spite of my
respect.

On our meeting next half-year poor Harry
was forgotten by everybody except by me. I
always wore the locket next my heart, and