boys, a sudden resentment fired his heart, and
gave his lanky figure, for the moment, an
heroic air. Being advised to resign was
tantamount to dismissal; but Peter would
not so understand it.

"Gentlemen," he said, resting one hand on
the table where he stood, opposite to the
chairman, and looking from one averted face
to another as he spoke, "Gentlemen, I am as
well fitted for my duty as I have ever been,
and I will not condemn myself by accepting
your permission to resign."

"Then it only remains for us to dismiss
you," replied the chairman.

Accordingly, Peter Garnet was formally
dismissed from the office of Master of Saint
Ann's School, on account of an irregularity
connected with his keeping of the books.
Having heard his sentence, the old man,
with another long row of nails driven
into his coffin-lid, made his mechanical
bow to the governors, and went up to the
Gate-room, where Alice was just recovering
from a blush aroused by the transit of the
Fordham wagon. There was no need for
her to ask what ailed him now; for, the
moment he entered the room, he said, while
a crimson spot burnt on his sallow cheek,

"Alice, pack up all that belongs to thee
and me, and let us be going. I am no longer
Master of Old Saint Ann's!"

"I was born here. Why are we to go,
father? What has happened?"

"The governors have dismissed me, Alice."

He could not bear at first to tell her why.
She looked at him sadly, but said no more;
and they both sat down mechanically to eat
the dinner which had been waiting on the
table for ever so long. While they were thus
occupied, there was a knock at the door, and
in came Mr. Elsworthy, his fine countenance
full of a genuine compassion.

"I hope you don't require any assurance
from me, Mr. Garnet, that I am persuaded
this is all a miserable mistake," he said,
extending his hand to the ejected schoolmaster.
"I shall lose no opportunity of expressing
that opinion everywhere."

"You're very kind, Mr. Elsworthy. I
thought I'd more friends of your stamp than
I prove to have," replied Peter, bitterly.

"Don't let it get the better of you, or else
you'll die of it—I see, Peter, how you're
taking it to heart," said Mr. Elsworthy,
relapsing into the familiar form of address, as
he remembered that they had been boys
together at the grammar-school.

"Die of it?" repeated poor old Peter.
"No! I'll live to see myself righted, if it be
only for the sake of Alice there."

"That is the proper spirit to meet an injustice
with. The governors commissioned me to
pay you your quarter's salary, and I hope you'll
let me do you justice if they would not. You
know the Master of Saint Ann's, if he hold
office for twenty years, is entitled to the
retiring pension—well, I mean to pay it you
myself as a testimony of what Broughton
owes you——"

"Thank you, Mr. Elsworthy, for your
noble intentions; but there's work in me yet,
and, please God, while there is, I'll be no
man's pensioner," replied Peter, with grateful
resolution. "This is my due, and there's
the written receipt—the last time I'll sign my
name to aught concerning Old Saint Ann's."

He gave a slip of paper into Mr.
Elsworthy's hand, and sat down heavily.

"It is very hard, after forty toilsome years,
to be sent adrift like this; but I'll not believe
you'll suffer long," said Mr. Elsworthy,
encouragingly. "If they had taken a night to
sleep on it they'd have acted differently.
Peter, you must receive the pension. You
know I can spare it well, and the boys and
girls will never miss it."

"They hadn't need, sir. But it's not that,
Mr. Elsworthy, it's the principle of the
thing. Let me keep my own respect, if I
must lose other folk's. We'll say no more
about it, if you please, sir."

And, seeing that Peter was firm, Mr.
Elsworthy pressed it no more.

Long before evening, the news had spread
through Broughton that Peter Garnet—that
man familiar to every eye, and dear to every
poor soul's heart, in all the town—had
ceased to be Master at Old Saint Ann's. Oh,
how Nanny Liversedge bemoaned herself!
He'd been such a kind friend to her an'
hers; he'd been the making of Mark, and
what should she do without him? There
were hundreds of young men—ay, and fathers
of families, too—who had been Saint Ann's
boys, and they would hardly believe it. He
dismissed for making away with money!
There must be a mistake somewhere; but it
was not he who had made the mistake, they
were sure! Old Master—as they still fondly
called him—was honest and true to the
backbone!

Mark Liversedge spoke out bravely for him,
too, at Downham's bank, and in the market-
place, and at the mechanics' institute, thereby
giving great offence to Lawyer Hartop; but
Mark loved Alice, and, I hope, this solitary
gratuitous act of kindness may weigh very
heavily in the balance against his long afterlife
of hardness and hypocrisy. Amongst
others, Richard Preston learnt the bad news,
and his first impulse was to go straight to
the gateway and see Alice. Leaving the
wagon under charge of a carter belonging to
a Fordham farmer, he hastened thither, and
found both her and Peter busy packing up.

Peter received him more kindly than usual
—for a friendly act is not to be scouted by
a man in disgrace—and Alice gave him a
sweet look of gratitude.

"You must not be downcast, master; for,
from the biggest to the littlest of us, there's
not one of us credits a word agen you,"
said he.

"I am not downcast, Richard if I were a