24 LUNCH IN THE WOOD.

“Would you have done the same, if Mr. Harding
had been here?” said Maurice, gently. “Would you,
Dick, have done the same as you have done, if Mr.
Harding had been of our party ? ”

“Well,” said Dick, hesitatingly, “to speak the truth,
Maurice, I should not; but we are not obliged to be
all the time under his eye. He will know nothing of
it.”

“My father placed me here,” said Maurice, “to be
under Mr. Harding’s care, in his absence from home.
He told me to regard him as a friend, master, and
protector, and expects me in all things to consult Mr.
Harding’s wishes and opinions ; and I should feel as if
I was acting very wrong to do anything contrary to
them. I would not do, when absent from him, what
I would not do in his presence; and besides that, I
know my father would disapprove of it. He is far
away at sea, thousands of miles from here, and would
never know it; but I love him too well to do what I
know he would condemn.”

“Oh, you are too particular, altogether!” said Tom
Bailey. “You will lose some of these ideas after you -
have been here a while, and see what capital times we
have. A boy of fourteen must begin to act a little
independently, and to think a little for himself, or he
will be a baby all his life.”

“I have begun to think for myself, and to act inde-
pendently,” answered Maurice, “and that is one reason