MR.

ARMSTRONG PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT.
Mr Armstrong, as unconcerned as if he had just returned from a half- hour's stroll, had little idea of the flutter which his return caused to the Maxfield family.

He could hardly know that Raffles was parading the lower regions rubbing his hands, and informing his acquaintance down there that the season for "larks" was coming on; nor, as he was out of earshot, could he be supposed to know the particularly forcible expressions which Captain Oliphant rehearsed to himself in celebration of the occasion.

As for the young people, it did afford him a passing gratification to feel his pupil's arm linked once more in his own, and to encounter the expected boisterous welcome from Tom and Jill.

Miss Rosalind was busy, forsooth! and if Mr Armstrong flattered himself she took the slightest interest in his return, he might find out his mistake.
"I'll join you in a minute, Roger," said he to his ward, "but I must go and pay my respects to your mother." "Oh, she'll keep," said Roger; "I want to hear what you've been up to." "In five minutes," said the tutor, going to the drawing-room.
Mrs Ingleton was there, looking pale and fragile, pouring out afternoon tea for Captain Oliphant.
"Why, Mr Armstrong," said she, "we had given you up for lost; Roger was getting quite melancholy without you." "I understood," began the captain, "when you asked leave--" "Mrs Ingleton, I must ask you to excuse my long absence.