“You!” said Brie, with a start and a deep blush.  “Good heavens!  I didn’t notice you, and should not have dreamt of coming, if I’d known you were there.  Oh, Vernon, forgive me for setting you such, a bad example.”

“Yes, I was there, and I was caught.”

“Poor boy! but never mind; there are such a lot that you can’t get much done to you.”

“It isn’t that I care for; I’ve been flogged before, you know.  But—­may I say something?”

“Yes, Vernon, anything you like.”

“Well, then,—­oh, Eric!  I am so, so sorry that you did that to Mr. Rose to-night.  All the fellows are praising you up, of course; but I could have cried to see it, and I did.  I wouldn’t have minded if it had been anybody but Rose.”

“But why?”

“Because, Eric, he’s been so good, so kind to both of us.  You’ve often told me about him, you know, at Fairholm, and he’s done such, lots of kind things to me.  And only to-night, when he heard I was caught, he sent for me to the library, and spoke so firmly, yet so gently, about the wickedness of going to such low places, and about so young a boy as I am learning to drink, and the ruin of it and—­and”—­His voice was choked by sobs for a time,—­“and then he knelt down and prayed for me, so as I have never heard any one pray but mother;—­and do you know, Eric, it was strange, but I thought I did hear our mother’s voice praying for me too, while he prayed, and”—­He tried in vain to go on; but Eric’s conscience continued for him; “and just as he had ceased doing this for one brother, the other brother, for whom he has often done the same, treated him with coarseness, violence, and insolence.”

“Oh, I am utterly wretched, Verny.  I hate myself And to think that while I am like this, they are yet loving and praising me at home.  And, oh, Verny, I was so sorry to hear from Duncan, how you were talking the other day.”

Vernon hid his face on Eric’s shoulder; and as his brother stooped over him, and folded him to his heart, they cried in silence, until wearied with sorrow, the younger fell asleep; and then Eric carried him tenderly down stairs, and laid him, still half-sleeping, upon his bed.

He laid him down, and looked at him as he slumbered.  The other boys had not been disturbed by their noiseless entrance, and he sat down on his brother’s bed to think, shading off the light of the candle with his hand.  It was rarely now that Eric’s thoughts were so rich with the memories of childhood, and sombre with the consciousness of sin, as they were that night, while he gazed on his brother Vernon’s face.  He did not know what made him look so long and earnestly; an indistinct sorrow, an unconjectured foreboding, passed over his mind, like the shadow of a summer cloud.  Vernon was now slumbering deeply; his soft childish curls fell off his forehead, and his head nestled in the pillow; but there was an expression of uneasiness on his sleeping features, and the long eyelashes were still wet with tears.