“And now let’s drop it,” said Howard, the boy who had asked the question as to the invitations for Tuesday.  “If Digby doesn’t like the receptions, it’s a pity he doesn’t stay away.  I don’t know another boy in the school who would think with him.”

“Nor I, and I can’t make out why any one should,” said Alick; “to my mind they are the jolliest evenings we have.”

“Oh yes, I should think they would just suit you” answered Digby, with his accustomed sneer, “but they don’t suit me.  They are precious slow affairs, and I don’t care much for the society of Mrs. B. She pries into the school affairs a sight too much as it is, and——­”

What other objections Digby might have advanced will forever remain unknown.  He had committed high treason in speaking lightly of a name dear to the heart of every boy there, and a storm of hissing and hooting greeted his unfinished sentence.

He saw that he had trespassed on ground which was too dangerous for him to tread any further, and so, with a defiant “Bah!” he threw his jacket over his shoulder and walked sullenly away.

Many of the boys in Blackrock school would have found a difficulty in stating the exact grounds of their regard for Mrs. Brier.  To some of them she was a comparative stranger; they could not trace one direct act in which they were indebted to her.  Perhaps the merest commonplaces in conversation had passed between them, and yet they felt there was a something in her presence which threw sunshine around them; they felt that they were thought about, cared for and loved, and in any little scrape into which, boy-like, they might get, they felt satisfied that if the matter only came to her knowledge they would get an impartial judgment on the case, and the best construction that could be put upon their conduct would be sure to be suggested by her.  But out of eighty boys it would not be reasonable to suppose that all should share this feeling alike,—­we have seen already one exception; yet the disaffected were in a very small minority, and the majority was so overwhelming, and had amongst it all the best acknowledged strength and power of the school, that no one dared to say above his breath one word against Mrs. Brier, if he cared for a whole skin.

While Digby was returning to the school by one road, Howard and Martin strolled leisurely along by another path under the trees.

“I can’t understand Digby,” said Martin; “he has altered so very much lately that he hardly seems the same fellow he was.  Have you noticed that he cuts all his old chums now?  What’s happened to him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Howard, “but he certainly has altered very much.  I wish we could be as friendly as we used to be, but it is months since we have been on really good terms together.”

“Two or three years ago we used to be the best of friends,” said Martin.

“Yes, but all that has been gradually altering.  He seems to have taken a dislike to me.  I can’t help thinking that Digby has some secret that worries him.”