The desk next to Johnny’s had been vacant for a long time, and he did not like this much, for he was a boy, and although of course, no great amount of conversation was permitted during school hours, it is something to be able to make faces to a sympathetic desk-mate. There was not an absolute rule against talking in the school which Johnny attended. The teacher had said, at the beginning of the term,—  
“Now, boys, I don’t forbid you to speak to each other during school hours, if you have anything really worth saying on your minds, and will speak so that you will not disturb your neighbors, but all long conversations can be saved till school is out, and I hope you will be honorable enough not to talk foolishly, or to take advantage of this permission. If I find it necessary, I shall resort to a rule, so you have the matter in your own hands.”
 
It had not been found necessary, so far, although the school was full, excepting that one vacant seat next to Johnny’s.
 
“It may be a coincidence, you know, Tiny,” said Johnny, one day, when he had been his lonely lot to his sister, “but I don’t know—I have a kind of a sort of an idea that it isn’t.”
 
“What is a coincidence, anyhow, Johnny?” inquired Tiny, who was never above asking for information.
 
“It’s two things happening together, accidentally, that look as if they had been done on purpose,” explained Johnny, with the little air of superior wisdom that he always wore when Tiny asked him a question that he could answer. I am afraid he sometimes hunted up one or two long words, to be worked into his next conversation with Tiny, for the purpose of explaining to her! It was so pleasant to see her large eyes raised admiringly to his face.
 
“But why shouldn’t it be a really and truly coincidence, Johnny?” pursued Tiny.
 
“Oh well, because Mr. Lennox said one day that he thought Conover and I might be shaken up together, and equally divided, to advantage, and Harry’s the quietest boy I ever knew, so it’s pretty plain what he meant by that. And I’ve noticed how he does with the other boys; he finds out where their weak spots are, and then tries to them up there, but while he’s trying, he sort of keeps things out of their way that would be likely to make them slip up, and so I s’pose that is what he is doing to me. But it’s very stupid to be all alone, and I wish another boy would come—then he’d have to use that desk, for it’s the only one that’s left.”
 
Two or three days after this talk with Tiny, Johnny rushed in from school in a state of great excitement, exclaiming, as he entered the room where his mother and sister were sitting,—
 
 
“The seat’s taken, mamma! And it wasn’t a coincidence, Tiny! Mr. Lennox made a little sort of a speech to me, all by myself, after school; he knew this boy was coming, and he saved the seat on purpose for him, and I’m dreadfully afraid he’s a prig! He didn’t act the least bit like a new boy, he just studied and ciphered and wrote as if he’d been going there all his life! And whenever I to him, he just looked at me—so!” and Johnny’s round face assumed an expression of mild and reproachful surprise, which made Tiny laugh, and even made his mother smile, though she shook her head at him at the same time, saying reprovingly,—
 
“Johnny, Johnny, you know I don’t like you to people, dear!”
 
“I beg your pardon, mammy darling!” and Johnny his rough head into his mother’s lap, “that sort of went off of itself! But indeed, I didn’t talk much to him, and it was about very useful things. He hadn’t any sponge, and I offered him mine, and he was hunting everywhere but in the right place for the Danube river, and I just put my finger on the map, and said, ‘Here it is,’ and he didn’t so much as say ‘thank you!’ And at I said, ‘Do you love cookies, Ned?’—his name is Ned Owen—and he said, with a sort of a , ‘I don’t love anything to eat,’ so I thought I’d—I’d see him further before I’d give him one of your cookies, mamma!”
 
“Now Johnny Leslie,” said his mother, smoothing his hair softly with her nice little cool hands, “you’ve taken a prejudice against that poor boy, and if you don’t stop yourself, you’ll be quarrelling with him before long! Something I read the other day said that, when we find fault with people, and talk against them, there is always envy at the bottom of our dislike. I don’t think it is quite always so, but I do believe it very often is. While you are undressing to-night, I want you to sort yourself out, and put yourself just where you belong.”
 
Johnny hung his head; he did not have to do a great deal of sorting to find the truth of what his mother had said.
 
There was a careful completeness about everything the new boy had done, which, to a head-over-heels person, was truly .
 
And as days passed on, this feeling grew and strengthened. There was a curious little stiffness and formality about all Ned Owen said and did, which Johnny found very “trying,” and which made him overlook the boy’s really pleasant side; for he had a pleasant side, as every one has, only, unfortunately, we do not always take as much pains to find it as we do to find the unpleasant one.
 
It seemed to most of the boys that Ned did not mind the fun which was certainly “poked” at him in abundance, but Johnny was very sure that he did. The pale, thin face would flush suddenly, the slender hands would be , either in his pockets, or under cover of his desk. Johnny generally managed to keep himself from joining in the fun, as it was considered by all but the victim, but he did this more to please his mother than because he allowed his conscience to tell him the truth.
 
Boys are not always so funny and as they mean to be and think they are. There was nothing really amusing in calling Ned “Miss Nancy,” and asking him what he put on his hands to whiten them, and yet these remarks, and others of the same lofty character, could raise a laugh at any time.
 
But deep under Johnny’s contempt for Ned, was the thorn of envy. Before Ned came, Johnny had stood first in just one thing. Twice a week the “Scholar’s Companion” class was required to write “sentences”; that is, each boy must choose a word out of the spelling and defining lesson, and work it into a turned sentence of not less than six, or more than ten lines. Johnny liked this; it seemed to him like playing a game, and he had stood at the head of the class for a long time, for it so happened that no other boy in the class shared his feeling about it. But now, Ned went above him nearly every other time, and they changed places so regularly, that this too became a joke among the other boys.
 
Johnny was walking home from school one day with such deliberation, that Jim Brady, whose stand he was passing without seeing where he was, called out with much pretended anxiety,—
 
“You’re not sunstruck, or anything, are you, Johnny? I’ve heard that when folks are sunstruck, they don’t recognize their best friends!”
 
Johnny laughed, but not very .
 
“I beg your pardon, Jim,” he said, “I didn’t see you, really and truly—I was thinking.”
 
“All right!” said Jim, cordially, “it’s hard work, thinking is, and sort of takes a fellow’s mind up! I know how it is myself.”
 
While he was speaking, a little boy, , dirty, and totally unattractive-looking, up, and waited to be noticed.
 
“Well, Taffy,” said Jim, with a gentleness which Johnny had only seen displayed to his mother and Tiny, before, “did you sell them all
 
“I did, Jimmy!” and the ugly, little face was brightened with a smile, “every one I sold—and look here, will you?” and he held up a silver quarter.
 
“Well done, you!” and Jim patted him approvingly on the back. “Now see here; here’s two tens and a five I’ll give you for it; you’ll give me one of the tens, to buy your papers for you in the morning, and the fifteen will get you a bed at Mother Rooney’s, and buy your supper and breakfast. You’d better right along, for it’s quite a walk from here. Be along bright and early, and I’ll have the papers ready for you.”
 
The little fellow nodded, and limped away.
 
“Who is he, anyhow?” asked Johnny, when he was out of hearing.
 
“Oh, I don’t know!” and Jim looked embarrassed, for the first time in his life, so far as Johnny’s knowledge of him went. “He’s a little beggar whose grandmother or something died last week, and the other people in the room kicked him out. You see, your mother had just been reading us that piece about neighbors—about that old fellow that picked up the one that was robbed, and gave him a ride, and paid for him at the tavern,and then she said it ought to be just the same way now—we ought to be looking out for chances to be neighborly, and it just happened—”
 
Jim had grown quite red in the face, and now he stopped .
 
“I think that was jolly of you,” said Johnny, warmly, “how near you did he live, before he was kicked out?”
 
“About two miles off, I should say, if I was to survey it,” and Jim grinned, recovering his composure as he did so.
 
“I often wonder at you, Johnny Leslie,” he continued, “and think maybe you came out of a penny paper story, and were off for another baby, when you were little!”
 
“What on earth do you mean?” asked Johnny, impatiently. He was somewhat afraid of Jim’s sharp eyes and tongue.
 
“Oh, nothing much,” replied Jim, “it’s just my little lively way, you know. But your mother don’t think neighbors need to live next door to each other; you ask her if she does!”
 
“Oh!” said Johnny, “why can’t you say what you mean right out, Jim?”
 
“Well, I might, possibly, I suppose,” and Jim looked thoughtful, “but I’ve a general idea it wouldn’t always give satisfaction all round, and I’m the last man to hurt a fellow-critter’s feelings, as you ought to know by this time, Johnny!”
 
“I must go home,” said Johnny, suddenly, “Goodbye, Jim.”
 
“Goodbye to you,” responded Jim, affably, “I’ll be along as usua............