"That's all you know about it, Madam Elsie. Mr. Potter told me to-day that I was dropping behind with my arithmetic, and must join his class at once if I wanted to stand a chance."
"And you will, Tom, won't you?" pleaded his sister; "father and mother would be so pleased, you know, only they can't be bothered about it just now,—at least, father mustn't be worried. Mother might tell you what she thinks you ought to do."
Tom grunted out something about Elsie minding her own business, and leaving him to mind his, but she was all eagerness that her brother should share her pleasure and success; and so, when she took the children up to bed, and her mother came to kiss them, she told her what she and Tom had been talking about.
"Of course, he is pleased at the idea of joining this class," said Mrs. Winn.
"I daresay he would be pleased, if he knew you wished it, mother," whispered Elsie.
"I'll speak to him about it. If he could join this class, it might take him away from that John Bond he is so fond of, for I don't like him as a companion for Tom, since I feel sure he makes him worse than he would be, for getting into mischief."
So when Tom went to say good-night an hour later, his mother whispered, "You will join Mr. Potter's class, I hope, my boy, for your father would wish it, I am sure, if we could talk to him about it."
"Very well, mother," said Tom, not liking to make any objection just now, but half wishing he had not told Elsie a word about the matter.
On his way to school the next morning, he met his chosen friend John Bond a few yards from his own door. This lad was nearly a head taller than Tom, a big loutish fellow, who lorded it over his companions whenever he could, on the score of his size, and to him Tom confided his grievance of having to join the scholarship class.
"Potter never told me about this class," he said, as though the master had committed some offence in not consulting his biggest scholar on the matter. "I wonder why I am not asked as well as you and the other fellows," he went on. "I'm in the sixth too; why shouldn't he ask me?" he demanded.