"I suppose I mean merit; but the one implies the other. They go by neither."

"Or you think that Frank Halliburton would have had it?"

"At any rate, he has not got it. Neither has Wall. Therefore, we have made up our minds, he and I, to go to Oxford as servitors."

"All right! Success to you both!"

Frank fell into a reverie. The friend of whom he spoke, Wall, was nephew of the under-master of the college school. "Of course I never expected to get to college in any other way," continued Frank, taking up the tongs and balancing them on his fingers. "If an exhibition did at odd moments cross my hopes, I would not dwell upon it. There are fellows in the school richer and greater than I. However, the exhibition is _gone_, and there's an end of it. The question now is--if I do go as a servitor, can my mother find the little additional expense necessary to keep me there?"

"Yes, I am sure she can: and will," replied William.

"There'll be the expenses of travelling, and sundry other little things," went on Frank. "Wall says it will cost each of us about fifteen pounds a year. We have dinner and supper free. Of course, I should never think of tea, and for breakfast I would take milk and plain bread.

There'd be living at home between terms--unless I found something to do--and my clothes."

"It can be managed. Frank, you'll drop those tongs."

"What we shall have to do as servitors neither I nor Wall can precisely tell," continued Frank, paying no attention to the warning. "Wall says, brushing clothes, and setting tables for meals, and waiting on the other students at dinner, will be amongst the refreshing exercises. However it may be, my mind is made up _to do_. If they put me to black shoes, I shall only sing over it, and sit down to my studies with a better will when the shoes have come to an end."

William smiled. "Blacking shoes will be no new employment to you, Frank."

"No. And if ever I catch myself coveting the ease and dignity of the lordly hats, I shall just cast my thoughts back again to our early privations; to what my mother struggled through for us; and that will bring me down again. We owe all to her; and I hope she will owe something to us in the shape of comforts before she dies," warmly added Frank, the tears rising to his eyes.

"It is what I have hoped for years," replied William, in a low tone. "It is coming, Frank."

"Well, I think I do now see one step before me. You remember papa's dream, William?"

William simply bowed his head.

"Lately I have not even seen that step. Between ourselves, I was losing some of my hopefulness; and you know that is what I never lost, whatever the rest of you may have done."

"We none of us lost hope, Frank. It was hope that enabled us to bear on.

You were over-sanguine."

"It comes to the same thing. The step I see before me now is to go to Oxford as a servitor. To St. John's if I can, for I should like to be with Wall. He is a good, plodding fellow, though I don't know that he is over-burthened with brains."

"Not with the quick brains of Frank Halliburton."

Frank laughed. "You know Perry, the minor canon? He also went to St.

John's as a servitor. I shall get him to tell me----"

Frank stopped. The tongs had gone down with a clatter.

CHAPTER XVI.

MRS. DARE'S GOVERNESS.

"There's such a row at our place!" suddenly announced Cyril Dare, at the Pomeranian Knoll dinner-table, one Monday evening.

"What about?" asked Mr. Dare.

"Some money's missing. At least, a cheque; which amounts to the same thing."

"Not quite the same," dissented Mr. Dare. "Unless it has been cashed."

"I mean the same as regards noise," continued Cyril. "There's as much fuss being made over it as if it had been fourteen pounds' weight of solid gold. It was a cheque of Dunns'; and the master put it into his desk, or says he did so. When he came to look for it, it was gone."

"Who took it?" inquired Mr. Dare.

"Who's to know? That's what we want to find out."

"What was the amount?"

"Fourteen pounds, I say. A paltry sum. Ashley makes a boast, and says it's not the amount that bothers him, but the feeling that we must have some one false near us."

"Don't speak so slightingly of money," rebuked Mr. Dare. "Fourteen pounds are not so easily picked up that it should be pleasant to lose them."

"I'm sure I don't want to speak slightingly of money," returned Cyril, rebelliously. "You keep me too short, sir, for me not to know the full value of it. But fourteen pounds cannot be much of a loss to Mr.

Ashley."

"If I keep you short, you have forced me to it by your extravagances--you and the rest of you," responded Mr. Dare, in short, emphatic tones.

An unpleasant pause ensued. When the father of a family intimates that his income is diminishing, it is not a welcome announcement. The young Dares had been obliged to hear it often lately. Adelaide broke the silence.

"How was the cheque taken?"

"It was a cheque brought by Dunns' people on Sat.u.r.day night, in exchange for money, and the master placed it in his open desk in the counting-house," explained Cyril. "He went into Lynn's room to watch the packing, and was away an hour. When he returned, the cheque was gone."

"Who was in the counting-house?"

"Not a soul except Halliburton. He was there all the time."

"And no one else went in?" cried Mr. Dare.

"No one," replied Cyril, sending up his plate for more meat.

"Why, then, it would look as if Halliburton took it?" exclaimed Mr.

Dare.

Cyril raised his eyebrows. "No one would venture to suggest as much in the hearing of the manufactory. It appears to be impressed with the opinion that Halliburton, like kings, can do no wrong."

"Mr. Ashley is so?"

"Mr. Ashley, and downwards."