"That will do, sir. You need not remain longer in your room, but you
will not leave the grounds. My friend's ship is at Portsmouth at
present, and doubtless I shall receive an answer in the course of a few
days. Until then, the less we see each other, the more pleasant for us
both."

There were few more miserable boys in England than Richard Horton,
during the week which elapsed before the answer to the squire's letter
was received. It cannot be said that, in the true sense of the word, he
was sorry for his fault. He was furious with himself, not because he
had lied, but because of the consequences of the lie. A thousand times
he called himself a fool for having imperilled his position, and risked
being sent back again to the dingy house in London, merely to excuse
himself for being thrashed by a boy smaller than himself. Mad with his
folly, not in having invented the story, but in having neglected to
look round, to assure himself that there were no witnesses who would
contradict it, he wandered disconsolate about the gardens and park,
cursing what he called his fortune.

It was an additional sting to his humiliation, that he knew every
servant in and about the house rejoiced at his discomfiture, and he
imagined that there was a veiled smile of satisfaction, at his bruised
visage and his notorious disgrace with the squire, on the face of every
man he met outside, and of every woman who passed him in the house.

During the whole week he did not venture near the stables, for there he
knew that he had rendered himself specially obnoxious, and there was
nothing for him to do but to saunter listlessly about the garden, until
the day arrived that the letter came granting the squire's request, and
begging that he might be sent off at once, as the vessel would probably