36 The Brothers.

 

“Oh, Johnnie! surely Mr. Moore is not
displeased with you?”

“He-said he was, aunt.”

“But do tell me what it is all about; you
do not know how anxious and unhappy you
are making me.”

“They were unjust to me,” said Johnnie
sturdily ; and then, catching sight of a figure
coming along the road, he exclaimed, “ There
now! there’s Mr. Moore. He'll tell you ;”
and, turning from then: *hastily, he ran into
the house. Stephen followed him, and Mrs.
Baynes turned to meet a kind-faced old gen-
tleman who entered the garden a moment
afterwards and shook hands with her in
friendly fashion.

“TI do hope, sir,” she began anxiously, “that
my Johnnie has not been giving you trouble.
He’s not like himself this afternoon.”

“Well, so I thought. I never remember
hearing a complaint of John before. But this
afternoon his teacher come to me quite dis-
turbed about him. ‘I told him to look over
the hymn-book with Ned Rice, he said. ‘And
some sort of a whisper passed between them,
and John got into such a rage he knocked
Ned off the form, threw down tke book, and
all I can say will not make him pick it up