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 one wanted assistance and support. There was the gardener's boy. But she feared he was weak about the knees.

"I wish you'd let me come," said Anthony. "I like a walk in the early morning. It freshens my brain for the day."

"Thank you," she answered. "I was really thinking of you, but I didn't like to ask in case it might interfere with your work."

She promised to let him know when the bicycle arrived. He might like to come round and have a look at it.

It was with something of a pang that he said good-bye to Edward, though it would be less than three months before they would meet again. He had not made many friends at the school; he was too self-centered. Young Mowbray was the only boy for whom he felt any real affection.

Tetteridge's "Preparatory and Commercial School" had prospered beyond expectation. In the language of the advertisement it supplied a long-felt want. "The gentry" of Millsborough—to be exact, its better-off shopkeepers, its higher-salaried clerks and minor professionals—were catered for to excess. But among its skilled workmen and mechanics, earning good wages, were many ambitious for their children. Education was