Mrs. Wilfrid had given gracious permission for the children at The Gables to continue to make use of the meadow, but Ronnie and Elsie were the only two who had at present taken advantage of the offer.
During his first month at school, Hugh had shown a decided talent for arithmetic, and had more than once earned the praise of his master, whose name was Mr. Deans.
Reg, who was not particularly clever at anything, was intensely jealous, not only of Hugh's superior abilities, but of his popularity; and he sought out a way by which to humiliate Hugh in the eyes of the whole school.
The latter by his love of fun and sport soon won for himself many friends and admirers, and this fact was gall and bitterness to Reg, who, ere his first week at school was out, had earned for himself the title of "Thorny Rose."
One morning the head-master, the Rev. Dr. Willoughby, took his place at his desk with a heavy frown on his brow, which was a sure token that some one had offended.
After he had touched the bell for silence, he spoke a few sharp decisive words, to the effect that a key to a certain book of arithmetic was missing.
"I trust I am dealing with gentlemen," said he with awful solemnity, "and that not one of you would be guilty of such a mean action as to make use of any such book to assist you with your work."
"Boys in the Third Form," he added, with a keen, searching glance at the faces of the lads, "give up the keys of your desks. I desire Mr. Deans to search for the missing book."
Why the Third Form should be thus adjured did not transpire, but the fact of the matter was, that the day previously Mr. Deans had made inquiries for the self-same key, and Reginald Rose had volunteered the information that he had seen it in the hands of his cousin Hugh.
The keys were at once given into Mr. Deans' keeping. As it happened two of them were exactly alike, a fact of which only Reg was cognizant.