Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles

by Mrs. Henry Wood

William advanced. "Mr. Lynn said I was to see yourself, sir, and to say that he waited for an answer."

Mr. Ashley opened the note, and read it by the lamp on Henry's table. It was not dark outside, and the chandelier was not lighted, but Henry's lamp was. "Sit down," said Mr. Ashley to William, and left the room, note in hand.

William felt it was something, Mr. Ashley's recognizing a difference between him and those black boys in the manufactory: they would scarcely have been told to sit in the hall. William sat down on the first chair at hand. Henry Ashley looked at him, and he recognized him as the boy who had been maltreated by the college boys on the previous day; but Henry was in no mood to be sociable, or even condescending—he never was, when over his lessons. His hip was giving him pain, and his exercise was making him fractious.

"There! it's always the case! Another five minutes, and I should have finished this horrid exercise. Papa is sure to go away, or be called away, when he's helping me! It's a shame."

Mrs. Ashley opened the door at this juncture, and looked into the room. "I thought your papa was here, Henry."

"No, he is not here. He has gone to his study, and I am stuck fast. Some blessed note has come, which he has to attend to: and I don't know whether this word should be put in the ablative or the dative! I'll run the pen through it!"

"Oh, Henry, Henry! Do not be so impatient."

Mrs. Ashley shut the door again; and Henry continued to worry himself, making no progress, except in fretfulness. At length William approached him. "Will you let me help you?"

Surprise brought Henry's grumbling to a standstill. "You!" he exclaimed. "Do you know anything of Latin?"

"I am very much farther in it than what you are doing. My brother Gar is as far as that. Shall I help you? You have put that wrong; it ought to be in the accusative."