salutation--he appeared to be deep in thought; but the bishop nodded
freely among them.

"I heard that the dean found fault, the last time the exhibition fell,
and said favour should never be shown again, so long as he was Dean of
Helstonleigh," said Harry Huntley, when the clergy were beyond hearing,
continuing the sentence he had been interrupted in. "I say that, with
fair play, it will be Channing's; failing Channing, it will be mine;
failing me, it will be Yorke's."

"Now, then!" retorted Gerald Yorke. "Why should you have the chance
before me, pray?"

Huntley laughed. "Only that my name heads yours on the rolls."

Once in three years there fell an exhibition for Helstonleigh College
school, to send a boy to Oxford. It would be due the following Easter.
Gaunt declined to compete for it; he would leave the school at
Michaelmas; and it was a pretty generally understood thing that
whichever of the three mentioned boys should be appointed senior in his
place, would be presented with the exhibition. Channing and Yorke most
ardently desired to gain it; both of them from the same motive--want of
funds at home to take them to the university. If Tom Channing did not
gain it, he was making up his mind to pocket pride, and go as a
servitor. Yorke would not have done such a thing for the world; all the
proud Yorke blood would be up in arms, at one of their name appearing
as a servitor at Oxford. No. If Gerald Yorke should lose the
exhibition, Lady Augusta must manage to screw out funds to send him. He
and Tom Channing were alike designed for the Church. Harry Huntley had
no such need: the son of a gentleman of good property, the exhibition