LAST AND WORST. | V7

the village after the circus, and be here in time for the fete.
Ifyou are late, Mr. Harding will think you very ungentle-
manly, and feel as if youtreated him with great rudeness.”

“Oh, trust us, Maurice,” said Frank, “for slipping in
unobserved! We have done such things before now.
Mr. Harding will never know but that we came in with
the rest, there will be so many there. Depend upon it,
we will not be discovered.” —

“JT am sorry to see you so determined, Frank. I
hoped I might persuade you to abandon the plan, though
I had but little hope of influencing the other boys.
But you are more guilty than the others, because you
are breaking a resolution to do right, and had already
taken one step, and are now going backwards, and will
find it harder than ever to commence again.” |

“T wish I was thoroughly good like you, Maurice,”
said Frank ; “then I could do right easily enough. But
- Inever-can be. I never thought I should like to be
good until I knew you. Almost all the boys I ever
knew before who pretended to be good, were like Philip
Graham,—good enough before their teacher, but else-
where, just like all the other boys. And though I
never pretended to be good myself, I always despised
hypocrisy more than anything else. But it seems to
make no difference with you, where you are or who
you are with, and that is a character I would tke to —
imitate.

“Do not talk to me so,” said Maurice. “No one