Mrs. Hudson left this afternoon, despite the fact that Ernie apologised to her very meekly this morning.

“Do you really think I ought, mother?” Ernie asked.

“Yes, dear; I do,” mother answered. “She was frightened and hurt and we are all sorry.”

Ernie made a wry face. “Perhaps she’ll stay, if she knows I did not mean it,” she said.

“No,” answered mother. “I am sure that she will not. It is not for that reason that I want you to apologise. Apart from the financial inconvenience I can’t regret Mrs. Hudson’s decision. In some ways it will be a great relief.”

“Well, here goes,” announced Ernestine. “The little Christian martyr bids a last bye-bye to her fond family.” And she turned and ran from the room.

She found Mrs. Hudson packing.

“You know I did not mean to tumble downstairs, Mrs. Hudson,” she told me later that she said:—“and I’m sorry that I had the pitcher with me. I was taking it up to your room for Mrs. Bo-gardus.”

“You seemed to be coming down the stairs when we met you,” returned Mrs. Hudson, suspiciously.

“Yes,” confessed Ernie. “I know it. I had brought up only one glass. I was going back for another, and my foot tripped.”

“Well,” returned Mrs. Hudson, evidently quite unmollified, “we will say no more about it. For a long time I have felt that a change would be desirable. Yesterday’s incident simply confirmed me in my half-formed resolution. I am going from here to stop with a Friend for a day or two, till I can look around and get more comfortably settled.”

“I hope you will have a good time, I’m sure,” observed Ernie, forgivingly. “But I wouldn’t want to visit her.”

Mrs. Hudson stared. “You?” she queried. “Oh, my dear!”

And directly after lunch she left us, and Ernie started in on a wild hunt for “the dump-cart contract.” To look for the contract is Ernie’s last resource in times of trouble.

“It must be somewhere, Elizabeth,” she argues, “and why not about the house? We know perfectly well that father went especially to get it signed that afternoon. He wouldn’t have come away without it. Perhaps it’s poked in a bureau-drawer, or under the blotting-paper on his desk, or maybe even back of the cuckoo-clock!”

And so, though these very places have been ransacked again and again, Ernie proceeded to turn the workshop upside down;—covered herself with dust crawling under Hazard’s cot, skinned the tip of her nose on the gas-fixture, and tore a great rent in her pink flannel petticoat.

About three o’clock Geof dropped in, as he generally does on his way home from school, and joined in the chase.

“Do you mean to say you have really lost a Boarder?” he asked, summing the catastrophe with a worried look. “You can’t afford it, can you?”

“No,” answered Ernie, mournfully, “we can’t. I just wish mother would whip me, as I deserve. It’s awful to love your family, Geof, and be nothing to them but a misfortune. Perhaps, if we don’t let Mrs. Hudson’s room soon, we won’t be able to afford ice cream on Sundays, and Mr. Hancock likes ice cream better than anything in the world. They will be leaving next.”

“Oh, cheer up,” said Geoffrey. “You’re not a misfortune to anybody, Ernie. If only Uncle Dudley had finished this,”—the three of us were standing rather disconsolately about the flying-machine,—“you wouldn’t have to think of boarders, or dump-carts, or anything like that. You’d be rich, and famous, too. Did he ever make an ascension, do you know?”

“Once, late at night, he tried,” answered Ernestine. “But I don’t think it was a success. He only rose a few feet from the roof, and then got tangled in some of the neighbours’ clothes-lines. Come on, Geof. Let’s look once more in the cuckoo-clock. It stands at the foot of the stairs, you know. Father might have stopped to wind it, and slipped the agreement into the works by mistake. It buzzed fearfully the last time we tried to make it go,—as if it were suffering from some sort of impediment.”

Entertaining no personal hope in regard to the cuckoo-clock, I left them on the landing and ran down to the dining-room, where I found Haze, who had also just come in. He was standing in the window, looking ruefully over the gas bill, which the postman had handed him through the grating.

“So Mrs. Hudson has really gone?” he began, throwing off his overcoat. “Well, as far as I can see, that means just one thing.”

“What does it mean, Haze?” I asked, surprised at his tone.

“That I give up High School,” answered Hazard gloomily, and cast his books and cap together upon a chair.

“Oh, Hazey!” I protested. “Wouldn’t that be rash? We may let Mrs. Hudson’s room to-morrow.”

“We may,” returned Hazard, “but we won’t.”

Then he seated himself astride the chair, his arms folded across the back, his chin resting upon his arms.

“It’s this way, Elizabeth,” he began. “I’m the man of the family, and I mustn’t shirk my responsibilities.”

“But you aren’t shirking, Hazard,” I urged, settling myself in the window-seat opposite him. “You are working, and working hard, to finish your education. It would be a dreadful thing for you to give up now,—it would mean a handicap for years, perhaps for life.”

“Some fellows have got to accept a handicap,” answered Hazard. “And the very fact that they know it spurs them on,—so that in the end, perhaps, it isn’t a bad thing. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately; but I couldn’t make up my mind and so I wouldn’t talk, not even to you, old girl. But this is how it stands. I can’t bear to see mother struggling along with the house, and Robin, and all her worries,—trying to satisfy everybody, being snubbed sometimes, and—unappreciated. At first, I thought I’d give up college (you know, I’d intended going in for the Conklin Scholarship, and every one said I would win it, too), but even so there would be two more years of study, and I’m not sure I could keep up the pace I’ve set myself lately. Then, I had a talk with Merriweather the other day” (Dr. Merriweather is the principal of Hazard’s school), “which wasn’t altogether satisfactory. He doesn’t think a fellow gets any good cramming the way I’ve been doing, and he intimated that even if I took the examinations next fall, and passed ’em, he wasn’t at all sure that he would graduate me. Well, that pretty nearly settled the business, and now this affair at home drives in the last nail. I’m going to quit, and take my proper place as the head of the family.”

“But, Hazard,” I urged, “don’t you think you ought to consult mother, or some older person, first? It’s a very grave step for you to take on your own responsibility. And besides, I don’t believe mother will let you be the head of the family. And who would employ you? and what sort of position could you fill?”

“That depends upon the acumen of the man to whom I apply,” returned Hazey, with such an owly look through his big glasses that I really wanted to laugh. “You know, Elizabeth, how Uncle George is continually repeating that though he doesn’t care for talent in his business he is willing to pay for ‘brains.’ I’ve got ’em, and I’m going to rent them to him! It’s a sacrifice, but I’ve made up my mind, so there’s no use arguing.”

“But you’ll wait till the end of the week, any way, dear,” I pleaded. “Give us that long, at least, to rent the room.”

“Yes; I’ll wait till Saturday,” compromised Hazard. “We shall have finished the Punic Wars by that time, and I’ve written a rather stunning outline on the subject I should like to have criticised. But if the room isn’t rented by then I quit. Now, remember, Elizabeth, not a word of this to anybody,—especially Ernestine. I don’t want her to feel that she is in any way responsible for blighting my career.”

“I won’t tell,” I answered; and so, of course, I haven’t; but, oh, I am very much afraid that Hazard is making a mistake!