.

OUT INTO THE WORLD.
"You had better let me go, mother.

I shall do no good here." Tom stood before his mother with a flush upon his handsome face--a flush that was one partly of shame, partly of anger, with a dash of excitement and eagerness thrown in.
His mother was in tears.

She had been uttering words of reproach and sorrow; for after a period of wonderful steadiness immediately succeeding his father's death, young Tom had broken out into his wild ways again, and her fond hopes of seeing him grow into her comfort and stay were dashed ruthlessly to the ground again.

The impression made upon him by the death of the Squire was growing dim now.