THE MISSING BOOK. 7

some one conversing with him within, and not wishing
to interrupt them, I retired to a window in the room
to wait until his visitor departed, and unintentionally
overheard the conversation within. Some one was
urging Maurice to become a subscriber to the circulat-
ing library, telling him he should have no trouble
about it, that he would procure and return all the
books, &c.; and he seemed at the same time to be
urging upon him a volume to read. Maurice Gray
firmly and positively refused to have anything to do
with it, giving the best of reasons for so doing, that
he would never wilfully break a rule of the school—
that his father entirely disapproved of such reading—
that he did not wish to cultivate a taste for it himself
—that he was perfectly satisfied with, and much inter-
ested in, the books which were provided for him to
read. His companion was still urging Maurice to do
as he desired, when the bell interrupted them, the other
boys entered the room, and he was obliged to leave.
I saw no book in his hand when he left the closet.
I think it must then have been left there. The boy ©
who was conversing with Maurice, and whom I saw
leave the closet, was Philip Graham.”

Mr. Harding started with surprise. He was well
aware that among his older pupils there were some he
could not trust, as they preferred their own will to
his; but Philip Graham, from outward conduct, had’
always been exemplary—what the boys called “ Mr.