He did not dismiss me and my tears to the nursery in despair.

With the insight and tenderness of a mother he restrained himself, and unknitting his brows, held out both his hands and said very kindly, "Come and tell poor Papa all about it, my darling." On which I jumped from my chair, and rushing up to him, threw my arms about his neck and sobbed out, "Oh, Papa! Papa! I don't want him." "Don't want _whom_, my boy ?" "M-m-m-m-r.

Gray," I sobbed.
"And who on earth is Mr.Gray, Regie ?" inquired my perplexed parent.
"The tutor--the new tutor," I explained.
"But _whose_ new tutor ?" cried the distracted gentleman, whose confusion seemed in no way lessened when I added, "Mine, Papa; the one you're going to get for me." And as no gleam of intelligence yet brightened his puzzled face, I added, doubtfully, "You are going to get one, aren't you, Papa ?" "What put this idea into your head, Regie ?" asked my father, after a pause.
And then I had to explain, feeling very uncomfortable as I did so, how I had overheard a few words at the Rectory, and a few words more at the lodge, and how I had patched my hearsays together and made out that a certain little man was coming to be my tutor, who had previously been tutor somewhere else, and that his name was Gray.

And all this time my father did not help me out a bit by word or sign.

By the time I had got to the end of my story of what I had heard, and what I had guessed, and what Nurse Bundle and I had made out, I did not need any one to tell me that to listen to what one is not intended to hear is a thing to be ashamed of.