"That day was the beginning of much trouble for me. I got in the way of going to Chalet whenever I could get leave, to see my new friends, who were always full of some plan to amuse themselves and me, and my home where I had been so happy I seemed no longer to care for. I must have grieved them all, but I thought not of it—my head was quite turned.

"One day I was setting off for Chalet to spend the afternoon, when, just as I was leaving, the bon papa stopped me.

"'Here, my child,' he said, holding out to me an apple; 'this is the first of this season's on thy pommier. I gathered it this morning—see, it is quite ripe—it was on the sunny side. Take it; thou mayest, perhaps, feel tired on the way.'

"I took it carelessly.

"'Thanks, bon papa,' I said, as I put it in my pocket. Bon papa looked at me sadly.

"'It is never now as it used to be,' he said. 'My little girl has never a moment now to spare for the poor old man. And she would even wish to leave him for ever; for thou knowest well, my child, I could not live with the thought of thee so far away. When my little girl returned she would find no old grandfather, he would be lying in the cold church-yard.'

"The poor old man held out his arms to me, but I turned away. I saw that his eyes were filled with tears—he was growing so feeble now—and I saw, too, that my mother, who was ironing at the table—work in which I could have helped her—stooped to wipe away a tear with the corner of her apron. But I did not care—my heart was hard, my little young ladies and young Monsieur—my heart was hard, and I would not listen to the voices that were speaking in my conscience.

"'It is too bad,' I said, 'that the chances of one's life should be spoilt for such fancies;' and I went quickly out of the cottage and shut the door. But as I went I saw my poor bon papa lift his head, which he had bent down on his hands, and say to my mother,

"'There will be no more apples this year on the pommier de la petite. Thou wilt see, my daughter, the fortune of the tree will leave it.'

"I heard my mother say something meant to comfort him, but I only hurried away the faster.

"What my grandfather meant about my wishing to leave him was this,—my new friends had put it in my head to ask my parents to consent to my going to Paris with the family in which the two that I told you of were maid and valet. They had spoken of me to their lady; she knew I had not much experience, and had never left home. She did not care for that, she said. She wanted a nice pretty girl to amuse her little boy, and walk out with him. And of course the young man, the valet, told me he knew she could not find a girl so pretty as I anywhere! I would find when I got to Paris, he said, how I would be admired, and then I would rejoice that I had not stayed in my stupid little village, where it mattered not if one had a pretty face or not. I had come home quite full of the idea—quite confident that, as I had always done exactly what I wished, I would meet with no difficulty. But to my astonishment, at the paternal house, one would not hear of such a thing!

"'To leave us—thou, our only girl—to go away to that great Paris, where one is so wicked—where none would guard thee or care for thee? No, it is not to be thought of,' said my father with decision; and though he was a quiet man who seldom interfered in the affairs of the house, I knew well that once that he had said a thing with decision, it was done with—it would be so.

"And my mother said gently,

"'How could'st thou ask such a thing, Marie?'

"And the bon papa looked at me with sad reproach; that was worse than all.

"So this day—the day that bon papa had given me the first apple of the season—I was to go to Chalet to tell my friends it could not be, I felt very cross and angry all the way there.

"'What have I done,' I said to myself, 'to be looked at as if I were wicked and ungrateful? Why should my life be given up to the fancies of a foolish old man like bon papa?'

"And when I got to Chalet and told my friends it was not to be, their regret and their disappointment made me still more displeased.

"'It is too much,' they all said, 'that you should be treated still like a bebe—you so tall and womanly that one might think you twenty.'

"'And if I were thee, Marie,' said one, 'I would go all the same. They would soon forgive thee when they found how well things would go with thee at Paris. How much money thou wouldst gain!'

"'But how could I go?' I asked.

"Then they all talked together and made a plan. The family was to leave Chalet the beginning of the week following, sooner than they had expected. I should ask leave from my mother to come again to say good-bye the same morning that they were to start, and instead of returning to Stefanos I should start with them for Paris. I had already seen the lady, a young creature who, pleased with my appearance, concerned herself little about anything else, and my friends would tell her I had accepted her offer. And for my clothes, I was to pack them up the evening before, and carry the parcel to a point on the road where the young man would meet me. They would not be many, for my pretty fete costumes, the dress of the country, which were my best possessions, would be of no use in Paris.

"'And once there,' said my friend, 'we will dress thee as thou should'st be dressed. For the journey I can lend thee a hat. Thou could'st not travel with that ridiculous foulard on thy head, hiding all thy pretty hair.'

"I remember there was a looking-glass in the room, and as Odette—that was the girl's name—said this, I glanced at myself. My poor foulard, I had thought it so pretty. It had been the 'nouvel an' of the bon papa! But I would not listen to the voice of my heart. I set out on my return home quite determined to carry out my own way.

"It was such a hot walk that day. How well I remember it! my little young ladies and little Monsieur, you would hardly believe how one can remember things of fifty years ago and more, as if they were yesterday when one is old as I am! The weather had been very hot, and now the clouds looked black and threatening.

"'We shall have thunder,' I said to myself, and I tried to walk faster, but I was tired, and oh, so hot and thirsty. I put my hand in my pocket and drew out the apple, which I had forgotten. How refreshing it was!

"'Poor bon papa,' I said to myself. 'I wish he would not be so exacting. I do not wish to make him unhappy, but what can I do? One cannot be all one's life a little child.'

"Still, softer thoughts were coming into my mind, I began to wish I had not given my decision, that I had said I would think it over. Paris was so far away; at home they might all be dead before I could hear, the poor bon papa above all; it was true he was getting very old.

"Just then, at a turn in the road, I found myself in face of Didier, Didier Larreya. He was walking fast, his face looked stern and troubled. He stopped suddenly on seeing me; it was not often of late that we had spoken to each other. He had not looked with favour on my new friends, who on their side had made fun of him (though I had noticed the day of the wedding that Odette had been very ready to dance with him whenever he had asked her), and I had said to my silly self that he was jealous. So just now I would have passed him, but he stopped me.

"'It is going to thunder, Marie,' he said. 'We shall have a terrible storm. I came to meet thee, to tell thee to shelter at our house; I told thy mother I would do so. I have just been to thy house.'

"I felt angry for no reason. I did not like his watching me, and going to the house to be told of all my doings. I resented his saying 'thou' to me.

"'I thank you, Monsieur Didier,' I said stiffly. 'I can take care of myself. I have no wish to rest at your house. I prefer to go home,' and I turned to walk on.

"Didier looked at me, and the look in his eyes was very sad.

"'Then it is true,' he said.

"'What is true?'

"'That you are so changed'—he did not say 'thou'—'that you wish to go away and leave us all. The poor bon papa is right.'

"'What has bon papa been saying?' I cried, more and more angry, 'What is it to you what I do? Attend to your own affairs, I beg you, Monsieur Didier Larreya, and leave me mine.'

"Didier stopped, and before I knew what he was doing, took both my hands in his.

"'Listen, Marie,' he said. 'You must. You are scarcely more than a child, and I was glad for you to be so. It would not be me that would wish to see you all wise, all settled down like an old woman at your age. But you force me to say what I had not wished to say yet for a long time. I am older than you, eight years older, and I know my own mind. Marie, you know how I care for you, how I have always cared for you, you know what I hope may be some day? Has my voice no weight with you? I do not ask you now to say you care for me, you are too young, but I thought you would perhaps learn, but to think of you going away to Paris? Oh, my little Marie, you would never return to us the same!"

"He stopped, and for a moment I stood still without speaking. In spite of myself he made me listen. He seemed to have guessed that though my parents had forbidden it, I had not yet given up the thoughts of going away, and in spite of my silly pride and my temper I was much touched by what he said, and the thought that if I went away he would leave off caring for me came to me like a great shock. I had never thought of it like that; I had always fancied that whatever I did I could keep Didier devoted to me; I had amused myself with picturing my return from Paris quite a grand lady, and how I would pretend to be changed to Didier, just to tease him. But now something in his manner showed me this would not do; if I defied him and my friends now, he would no longer care for me. Yet—would you believe it, my little young ladies and young Monsieur?—my naughty pride still kept me back. I turned from Didier in a rage, and pulled away my hands.

"'I wish none of your advice or interference,' I said. 'I shall please myself in my affairs.'

"I hurried away; he did not attempt to stop me, but stood there for a moment watching me.

"'Good-bye, Marie,' he said, and then he called after me, 'Beware of the storm.'

"I had still two miles to go. I hurried on, passing the Larreyas' farm, and just a minute or two after that the storm began. I heard it come grumbling up, as if out of the heart of the mountains at first, and then it seemed to rise higher and higher. I was not frightened, but yet I saw it was going to be a great storm—you do not know, my young ladies, what storms we have here sometimes—and I was so hot and so tired, and when the anger began to pass away I felt so miserable. I could not bear to go home and see them all with the knowledge in my heart of what I intended to do. When I got near to the orchard, which was about a quarter of a mile from the house, I felt, with all my feelings together, as if I could go no farther. The storm seemed to be passing over—for some minutes there had been no lightning or thunder.

"'Perhaps after all it will only skirt round about us,' I said. And as I thought this I entered the orchard and sat down on my own seat, a little bench that—now many years ago—the bon papa had placed for me with his own hands beside my pommier.

"I was so tired and so hot and so unhappy, I sat and cried.

"'I wish I had not said I would go,' I thought. 'Now if I change one will mock so at me.'

"I leaned my head against the trunk of my tree. I had forgotten about the storm. Suddenly, more suddenly than I can tell, there came a fearful flash of lightning—all about me seemed for a moment on fire—then the dreadful boom of the thunder as if it would shake the earth itself to pieces, and a tearing crashing sound like none I had ever heard before. I screamed and threw myself on the ground, covering my eyes. For a moment I thought I was killed—that a punishment had come to me for my disobedience. 'Oh! I will not go away. I will do what you all wish,' I called out, as if my parents could hear me. 'Bon papa, forgive me. Thy little girl wishes no longer to leave thee;' but no one answered, and I lay there in terror. Gradually I grew calmer—after that fearful crash the thunder claps seemed to grow less violent. I looked up at last. What did I see? The tree next to my pommier—the one but a yard or two from my bench—stood black and charred as if the burning hand of a great giant had grasped it; already some of its branches strewed the ground. And my pommier had not altogether escaped; one branch had been struck—the very branch on the sunny side from which bon papa had picked the apple, as he afterwards showed me! That my life had been spared was little less than a miracle." Marie paused....



"I left the orchard, my little young ladies and young Monsieur," she went on after a moment or two, "a very different girl from the one that had entered it. I went straight to the house, and confessed all—my naughty intention of leaving them all, my discontent and pride, and all my bad feelings. And they forgave me—the good people—they forgave me all, and bon papa took me in his arms and blessed me, and I promised him not to leave him while he lived. Nor did I—it was not so long—he died the next year, the dear old man! What would my feelings have been had I been away in Paris?"

Old as she was, Marie stopped to wipe away a tear. "It is nearly sixty years ago, yet still the tears come when I think of it," she said. "He would not know me now if he saw me, the dear bon papa," she added. "I am as old as he was then! How it will be in heaven I wonder often—for friends so changed to meet again? But that we must leave to the good God; without doubt He will arrange it all."

"And Didier, Marie?" said Sylvia, after a little pause. "Did you also make friends with him?"

Marie smiled, and underneath her funny old brown wrinkled skin I almost think she blushed a little.

"Ah yes, Mademoiselle," she said. "That goes without saying. Ah yes—Didier was not slow to make friends again—and though we said nothing about it for a long time, not till I was in the twenties, it came all as he wished in the end. And a good husband he made me."

"Oh!" cried Molly, "I see—then that's how your name is 'Larreya' too, Marie."

They all laughed at her.

"But grandmother said you had many more troubles, Marie," said Sylvia. "Long after, when first she knew you. She said you would tell us."

"Ah yes, that is because the dear lady wishes not herself to tell how good she was to me!" said Marie. "I had many troubles after my husband died. I told you my son Louis was a great grief, and we were poor—very poor—I had a little fruit-stall at the market—"

"Like my old woman in Paris," said Molly, nodding her head.

"And there it was the dear lady first saw me," said Marie. "It was all through the apples—bon papa did well for me the day he planted that tree! They were so fine—Madame bought them for the poor gentleman who was ill—and then I came to tell her my history; and when she took this house she asked me to be her concierge. Since then I have no troubles—my daughter married, long ago of course, but she died, and her husband died, and the friends were not good for her children, and it was these I had to provide for—my grand-daughters. But now they are very well off—each settled, and so good to me! The married one comes with her bebe every Sunday, and the other, in a good place, sends me always a part of her wages. And my son too—he that went to Paris—he writes often. Ah yes, I am well satisfied! And always my great-nephews send me the apples—every year—their father and their grandfather made the promise, and it has never been broken. And still, my little young ladies and little Monsieur—still, the old apple-tree at the paternal house at Stefanos, is called 'le pommier de la petite.'"

"How nice!" said the children all together. "Thank you, Marie, thank you so much for telling us the story."



CHAPTER VII.

GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER.

"I'll tell you a story of Jack-o-my-nory, And now my story's begun. I'll tell you another of Jack and his brother, And now my story's done."

OLD NURSERY RHYME.

Marie's story was the subject of much conversation among the children. Sylvia announced her intention of writing it down.

"She tells it so nicely," she said. "I could have written it down beautifully while she was talking, if she would have waited."

"She would not have been able to tell it so nicely if she had known you were waiting to write down every word as she said it," remarked grandmother. "At least in her place I don't think I could."

A shriek from Molly here startled them all, or perhaps I should say, would have done so, had they been less accustomed to her eccentric behaviour.

"What is the matter now, my dear?" said aunty.

"Oh," said Molly, gasping with eagerness, "grandmother's saying that reminded me."

"But what about, my dear child?"

"About telling stories; don't you remember grandmother dear, I said you would be perfect if you would tell us stories, and you didn't say you wouldn't."

"And what's more, grandmother promised me one," said Ralph.

"Did I, my dear boy?"

"Yes, grandmother," said Ralph, looking rather abashed, "don't you remember, grandmother—the day I called Prosper de Lastre a cad? I don't think he's a cad now," he added in a lower voice.

"Ah yes, I remember now," said grandmother. "But do you know, my dears, I am so sorry I cannot find your Uncle Jack's manuscript. He had written it out so well—all I can find is the letter in which he first alluded to the incident, very shortly. However, I remember most of it pretty clearly. I will think it over and refresh my memory with the letter, and some day I will tell it to you."

"Can't you tell it us to-night then, grandmother dear?" said Molly in very doleful tones.

They were all sitting round the fire, for it was early December now, and fires are needed then, even at Chalet! What a funny fire some of you would think such a one, children! No grate, no fender, such as you are accustomed to see—just two or three iron bars placed almost on the floor, which serve to support the nice round logs of wood burning so brightly, but alas for grandmother's purse, so swiftly away! But the brass knobs and bars in front look cheery and sparkling, and then the indispensable bellows are a delightful invention for fidgety fingers like those of Ralph and Molly. How many new "nozzles" grandmother had to pay for her poor bellows that winter I should really be afraid to say! And once, to Molly's indescribable consternation, the bellows got on fire inside; there was no outward injury to be seen, but they smoked alarmingly, and internal crackings were to be heard of a fearful and mysterious description. Molly flew to the kitchen, and flung the bellows, as if they were alive, into a pan of water that stood handy. Doubtless the remedy was effectual so far as extinguishing the fire was concerned, but as for the after result on the constitution of the poor bellows I cannot report favourably, as they were never again fit to use. And, as this was the fourth pair spoilt in a month, Molly was obliged to give up half her weekly money for some time towards replacing them!

But we are wandering away from the talk by the fire—grandmother and aunty in their low chairs working—the three children lying in various attitudes on the hearthrug, for hearthrug there was, seldom as such superfluities are to be seen at Chalet. Grandmother was too "English" to have been satisfied with her pretty drawing-room without one—a nice fluffy, flossy one, which the children were so fond of burrowing in that grandmother declared she would need a new one by the time the winter was over!

"Can't you tell it to us to-night then, grandmother dear?" said Molly.

"I would rather think it over a little first," said grandmother. "You forget, Molly, that old people's memories are not like young ones. And, as Marie says, it is very curious how, the older one gets, the further back things are those that one remembers the most distinctly. The middle part of my life is hazy compared with the earlier part. I can remember the patterns of some of my dresses as a very little girl—I can remember words said and trifling things done fifty years ago better than little things that happened last month."

"How queer!" said Molly. "Shall we all be like that, grandmother dear, when we get old?"

Grandmother laid down her knitting and looked at the children with a soft smile on her face.

"Yes, dears, I suppose so. It is the 'common lot.' I remember once asking my grandmother a question very like that."

"Your grandmother!" exclaimed all the children—Molly adding, "Had you ever a grandmother, grandmother dear?"

"Oh, Molly, how can you be so silly?" said Ralph and Sylvia, together.

"I'm not silly," said Molly. "It is you that are silly not to understand what I mean. I am sure anybody might. Of course I mean can grandmother remember her—did she know her? Supposing anybody's grandmother died before they were born, then they wouldn't ever have had one, would they now?"

Molly sat up on the rug, and tossed back her hair out of her eyes, convinced that her logic was unanswerable.

"You shouldn't begin by saying 'anybody's grandmother,'" remarked Ralph. "You put anybody in the possessive case, which means, of course, that the grandmother belonged to the anybody, and then you make out that the anybody never had one."

Molly retorted by putting her fingers in her ears and shaking her head vehemently at her brother. "Be quiet, Ralph," she said. "What's the good of muddling up what I say, and making my head feel so uncomfortable when you know quite well what I mean? Please, grandmother dear, will you go on talking as soon as I take my fingers out of my ears, and then he will have to leave off puzzling me."

"And what am I to talk about?" asked grandmother.

"Tell us about your grandmother. If you remember things long ago so nicely, you must remember story sort of things of then," said Molly insinuatingly.

"I really don't, my dear child. Not just at this moment, anyhow."

"Well, tell us about your grandmother: what was she like? was she like you?"

Grandmother shook her head.

"That I cannot say, my dear; I have no portrait of her, nor have I ever seen one since I have been grown up. She died when I was about fifteen, and as my father was not the eldest son, few, if any, heirlooms fell to his share. And a good many years before my grandmother's death—at the time of her husband's death—the old home was sold, and she came to live in a curious old-fashioned house, in the little county town a few miles from where we lived. This old house had belonged to her own family for many, many years, and, as all her brothers were dead, it became hers. She was very proud of it, and even during my grandfather's life they used to come in from the country to spend the worst of the winter there. Dear me! what a long time back it takes us! were my grandmother living now, she would be—let me see—my father would have been a hundred years old by now. I was the youngest of a large family you know, dears. His mother would have been about a hundred and thirty. It takes us back to the middle of George the Second's reign."

"Yes," said Molly so promptly, that every one looked amazed, "George the First, seventeen hundred and fourteen, George the Second, seventeen hundred and twenty-seven, George the Third, seventeen hundred and——"

"When did you learn that—this morning I suppose?" observed Ralph with biting sarcasm.

"No," said Molly complacently, "I always could remember the four Georges. Sylvia will tell you. She always remembered the Norman Conquest, and King John, and so when we spoke about something to do with these dates when we were out a walk Miss Bryce used to be as pleased as pleased with us."

"Is that the superlative of 'very pleased,' my dear Molly?" said aunty.

Molly wriggled.

"History is bad enough," she muttered. "I don't think we need have grammar too, just when I thought we were going to have nice story-talking. Did you like lessons when you were little, grandmother dear?" she inquired in a louder voice.

"I don't know that I did," said grandmother. "I was a very tom-boy little girl, Molly. And lessons were not nearly so interesting in those days as they are made now."

"Then they must have been—dreadful," said Molly solemnly, pausing for a sufficiently strong word.

"What did you like when you were little, grandmother?" said Sylvia. "I mean, what did you like best?"

"I really don't know what I liked best," said grandmother. "There were so many nice things. Haymaking was delicious, so were snow-balling and sliding; blindman's buff and snapdragon at Christmas were not bad, nor were strawberries and cream in summer."

The children drew a long breath.

"Had you all those?" they said. "Oh, what a happy little girl you must have been!"

"And all the year round," pursued grandmother, "there was another delight that never palled. When I look back upon myself in those days I cannot believe that ever a child was a greater adept at it."

"What was that, grandmother?" said the children, opening their eyes.

"Mischief, my dears," said grandmother. "The scrapes I got into of falling into brooks, tearing my clothes, climbing up trees and finding I could not get down again, putting my head through window-panes—ah dear, I certainly had nine lives."

"And what did your grandmother say? Did she scold you?" asked Molly—adding in a whisper to Ralph and Sylvia, "Grandmother must have been an awfully nice little girl."

"My grandmother was to outward appearance quiet and rather cold," replied their grandmother. "For long I was extremely afraid of her, till something happened which led to my knowing her true character, and after that we were friends for life—till her death. It is hardly worth calling a story, but I will tell it to you if you like, children."

"Oh, please do," they exclaimed, and Molly's eyes grew round with satisfaction at having after all inveigled grandmother into story telling.

"I told you," grandmother began, "that my grandmother lived in a queer, very old-fashioned house in the little town near which was our home. It was such a queer house, I wish you could have seen it, but long ago it was pulled down, and the ground where it stood used for shops or warehouses. When you entered it, you saw no stair at all—then, on opening a door, you found yourself at the foot of a very high spiral staircase that went round and round like a corkscrew up to the very top of the house. By the by that reminds me of an adventure of my grandmother's which you might like to hear. It happened long before I was born, but she has often told it me. Ah, Molly, I see that twinkle in your eyes, my dear, and I know what it means! You think you have got grandmother started now—wound up—and that you will get her to go on and on; ah well, we shall see. Where was I? Taking you up the corkscrew stair. The first landing, if landing it could be called, it was so small, had several doors, and one of these led into a little ante-room, out of which opened again a larger and very pretty drawing-room. It was a long, rather narrow room, and what I admired in it most of all were wall cupboards with glass doors, within which my grandmother kept all her treasures. There were six of them at least—in two or three were books, of which, for those days, grandmother had a good many; another held Chinese and Indian curiosities, carved ivory and sandal-wood ornaments, cuscus grass fans, a pair or two of Chinese ladies' slippers—things very much the same as you may see some of now-a-days in almost every prettily furnished drawing-room. And one, or two perhaps, of the cupboards contained treasures which are rarer now than they were then—the loveliest old china! Even I, child as I was, appreciated its beauty—the tints were so delicate and yet brilliant. My grandmother had collected much of it herself, and her taste was excellent. At her death it was divided, and among so many that it seemed to melt away. All that came to my share were those two handleless cups that are at the top of that little cabinet over there, and those were by no means the most beautiful, beautiful as they undoubtedly are. I was never tired of feasting my eyes on grandmother's china when I used to be sent to spend a day with her, which happened every few weeks. And sometimes, for a great treat, she used to open the wall cupboards and let me handle some of the things—for it is a curious fact that a child cannot admire anything to its perfect satisfaction without touching it too, and looking back upon things now, I can see that despite her cold manner, my grandmother had a very good knowledge of children and a real love and sympathy for them.

"One day—it was a late autumn day I remember, for it was just a few days after my ninth birthday—my birthday is on the fifteenth of November,—my mother told me that my father, having to drive to the town the following day, would take me with him to spend the day with grandmother.

"'And Nelly,' said my mother, 'do try to be very good and behave prettily. I really fear, my dear, that you will never be like a young lady—it is playing so much with your brothers, I suppose, and you know grandmother is very particular. The last time you were there you know you dressed up the cat and frightened poor old Betsy (my grandmother's cook) so. Do try to keep out of mischief this time.'

"'I can't,' I said. 'There is no one to play with there. I would rather stay at home;' and I teased my mother to say I need not go. But it was no good; she was firm about it—it was right that I, the only girl at home, should go to see my grandmother sometimes, and my mother repeated her admonitions as to my behaviour; and as I really loved her dearly I promised to 'try to be very good;' and the next morning I set off with my father in excellent spirits. There was nothing I liked better than a drive with him, especially in rather cold weather, for then he used to tuck me up so beautifully warm in his nice soft rugs, so that hardly anything but the tip of my nose was to be seen, and he would call me his 'little woman' and pet me to my heart's content.

"When we reached my grandmother's I felt very reluctant to descend from my perch, and I said to my father that I wished he would take me about the town with him instead of leaving me there.

"He explained to me that it was impossible—he had all sorts of things to do, a magistrate's meeting to attend, and I don't know all what. Besides which he liked me to be with my grandmother, and he told me I was a silly little goose when I said I was afraid of her.

"My father entered the house without knocking—there was no need to lock doors in the quiet streets of the little old town, where everybody that passed up and down was known by everybody else, and their business often known better by the everybody else than by themselves. We went up to the drawing-room, there was nobody there—my father went out of the room and called up the staircase, 'Mother, where are you?'

"Then I heard my grandmother's voice in return.

"'My dear Hugh—is it you? I am so sorry. I cannot possibly come down. It is the third Tuesday of the month. My wardrobe day.'

"'And the little woman is here too. What shall I do with her?' said my father. He seemed to understand, though I did not, what 'wardrobe day' meant.

"'Bring her up here,' my grandmother called back. 'I shall soon have arranged all, and then I can take her downstairs again.'

"I was standing on the landing by my father by this time, and, far from loth to discover what my grandmother was about, I followed him upstairs. You have no idea, children, what a curious sight met me! My grandmother, who was a very little woman, was perched upon a high stool, hanging up on a great clothes-horse ever so many dresses, which she had evidently taken out of a wardrobe, close by, whose doors were wide open. There were several clothes-horses in the room, all more or less loaded with garments,—and oh, what queer, quaint garments some of them were! The clothes my grandmother herself had on—even those I was wearing—would seem curious enough to you if you could see them now,—but when I tell you that of those she was hanging out, many had belonged to her grandmother, and mother, and aunts, and great-aunts, you can fancy what a wonderful array there was. Her own wedding-dress was among them, and all the coloured silks and satins she had possessed before her widowhood. And more wonderful even than the dresses were a few, not very many, for indeed no room or wardrobe would have held very many, bonnets, or 'hats,' as I think they were then always called. Huge towering constructions, with feathers sticking straight up on the top, like the pictures of Cinderella's sisters in old-fashioned fairy-tale books—so enormous that any ordinary human head must have been lost in their depths."

"Did you ever try one on, grandmother?" said Molly.

Grandmother shook her head.

"I should not have been allowed to take such a liberty," she said. "I stood and stared about me in perfect amazement without speaking for a minute or two, till my grandmother got down from her stool, and my father told me to go to speak to her.

"'Are you going away, grandmother?' I said at last, my curiosity overcoming my shyness. 'Are these all your clothes? You will want a great many boxes to pack them in, and what queer ones some of them are!'

"'Queer, my dear,' said my grandmother. 'They are certainly not like what you get now-a-days, if that is what you mean by queer. See here, Nelly, this is your great-grandmother's wedding dress—white Padusoy embroidered in gold—why, child, it would stand alone! And this salmon-coloured satin, with the pea-green slip—will the stuffs they dye now keep their colour like that a hundred years hence?'

"'It's good strong stuff certainly,' said my father, touching it as he spoke. But then he went on to say to my grandmother that the days for such things were past. 'We don't want our clothes to last a century now, mother,' he said. 'Times are hurrying on faster, and we must make up our minds to go on with them and leave our old clothes behind. The world would get too full if everybody cherished bygone relics as you do.'

"I don't think she much liked his talking so. She shook her head and said something about revolutionary ideas, which I didn't understand. But my father only laughed; his mother and he were the best of friends, though he liked to tease her sometimes. I wandered about the room, peeping in among the rows of quaint costumes, and thinking to myself what fun it would be to dress up in them. But after a while I got tired, and I was hungry too, so I was very glad when grandmother, having hung out the last dress to air, said we must go down to dinner—my father had left some time before——"

"What did you have for dinner, grandmother?" said Sylvia. "It isn't that I care so much about eating," she added, blushing a little, "but I like to know exactly the sort of way people lived, you know."

"Only I wish you wouldn't interrupt grandmother," said Molly. "I'm so afraid it'll be bed-time before she finishes the story."

"Which isn't yet begun—eh, Molly?" said grandmother. "I warned you my stories were sadly deficient in beginning and end, and middle too—in short they are not stories at all."

"Never mind, they're very nice," said Molly; "and if I may sit up till this one's done I don't mind your telling Sylvia what you had for dinner, grandmother dear."

"Many thanks for your small majesty's gracious permission," said grandmother. "But as to what we had for dinner, I really can't say. Much the same as you have now, I fancy. Let me see—it was November—very likely a roast chicken and rice pudding."

"Oh!" said Sylvia, in a tone of some disappointment; "go on then, please, grandmother."

"Where was I?" said grandmother. "Oh yes—well, after dinner we went up to the drawing-room, and grandmother, saying she was a good deal tired by her exertions of the morning, sat down in her own particular easy chair by the fire, and, spreading over her face a very fine cambric handkerchief which she kept, I strongly suspect, for the purpose, prepared for her after-dinner nap. It was really a regular institution with her—but I noticed she always made some little special excuse for it, as if it was something quite out of the common. She told me to amuse myself during her forty winks by looking at the treasures in the glass-doored cupboards, which she knew I was very fond of admiring, and she told me I might open the book cupboard if I wanted to take out a book, but on no account any of the others.

"Now I assure you, children, and by your own experience you will believe what I say, that, but for my grandmother's warnings, the idea of opening the glass doors when by myself would never have come into my head. I had often been in the drawing-room alone and gazed admiringly at the treasures without ever dreaming of examining them more closely. I had never even wished to do so, any more than one wishes to handle the moon or stars or any other un-get-at-able objects. But now, unfortunately, the idea was suggested, it had been put into my head, and there it stayed. I walked round the room gazing in at the cupboards in turn—the book ones did not particularly attract me—long ago I had read, over and over again, the few books in my grandmother's possession that I could feel interested in, and I stood still at last in front of the prettiest cupboard of all, wishing that grandmother had not forbidden my opening it. There were such lovely cups and saucers! I longed to handle them—one in particular that I felt sure I had never seen before. It had a deep rose pink ground, and in the centre there was the sweetest picture of a dear little shepherdess curtseying to an equally dear little shepherd.

"As I gazed at this cup the idea struck me that it would be delicious to dress one of my dolls in the little shepherdess's costume, and, eager to see it more minutely, I opened the glass door, and was just stretching up my hand for the cup, when I again remembered what my grandmother had said. I glanced round at her; she was fast asleep; there was no danger; what harm could it do for me to take the cup into my hand for a moment? I stretched up and took it. Yes, it was really most lovely, and the little shepherdess's dress seemed to me a perfect facsimile of the one I had most admired upstairs in my grandmother's wardrobe—a pea-green satin over a pale pink or rather salmon-coloured quilted slip. I determined that Lady Rosabella should have one the same, and I was turning over in my mind the possibilities of getting satin of the particular shades I thought so pretty, when a slight sound in the direction, it seemed to me, of my grandmother's arm-chair, startled me. I turned round hastily—how it was I cannot tell, but so it was—the beautiful cup fell from my hands and lay at my feet in, I was going to say, a thousand fragments."

"Oh!" exclaimed Sylvia and Molly—"oh, grandmother, what did you do?"

"First of all," grandmother continued, "first of all I stooped down and picked up the pieces. There were not a thousand of them—not perhaps above a dozen, and after all, grandmother was sleeping quietly, but to all appearance soundly. The sound that had startled me must have been a fancied one, I said to myself, and oh dear, what a terrible pity I had been startled!

"I gathered the bits together in my handkerchief, and stood staring at them in perfect despair. I dared not let myself burst out crying as I was inclined to do, for grandmother would have heard me and asked what was the matter, and I felt that I should sink into the earth with shame and terror if she saw what I had done, and that I had distinctly disobeyed her. My only idea was to conceal the mischief. I huddled the bits up together in my handkerchief, and huddled the handkerchief into my pocket—the first pocket I had ever had, I rather think—and then I looked up to see if the absence of the cup was very conspicuous. I thought not; the saucer was still there, and by pulling one or two of the other pieces of china forward a little, I managed to make it look as if the cup was just accidentally hidden. To reach up to do this, I had to draw forward a chair; in getting down from it again I made some little noise, and I looked round in terror to see if grandmother was awake. No, she was still sleeping soundly. What a blessing! I got out of one of the book cupboards a book I had read twenty times at least, and sitting down on a stool by the fire I pretended to read it again, while really all my ideas were running on what I should, what I could do. For I had no manner of doubt that before long the accident would be discovered, and I felt sure that my grandmother's displeasure would be very severe. I knew too that my having tried to conceal it would make her far less ready to forgive me, and yet I felt that I could not make up my mind to confess it all. I was so miserable that it was the greatest relief to me a minute or two afterwards to hear the hall door open and my father's hearty voice on the stair."

"'I have come to fetch you rather sooner than I said, little woman,' he exclaimed, as he came in, and then he explained that he had promised to drive a friend who lived near us home from the town in our gig, and that this friend being in a hurry, we must leave earlier than usual. My grandmother had wakened up of course with my father's coming in. It seemed to me, or was it my fancy?—that she looked graver than usual and rather sad as she bade us good-bye. She kissed me very kindly, more tenderly than was her habit, and said to my father that he must be sure to bring me again very soon, so that as I was going downstairs with him, he said to me that he was glad to see how fond grandmother was getting of me, and that he would bring me again next week. I did not feel at all pleased at this—I felt more unhappy than ever I had done in my life, so that my father, noticing it, asked what was the matter. I replied that I was tired and that I did not care for going to grandmother's, and then, when I saw that this ungracious answer vexed my kind father, I felt more and more unhappy. Every moment as we walked along—we were to meet the carriage at the inn where it had been left—the bits of broken china in my pocket bumped against my leg, as if they would not let themselves be forgotten. I wished I could stop and throw them away, but that was impossible. I trudged along, gloomy and wretched, with a weight on my heart that it seemed to me I would never get rid of. Suddenly—so suddenly that I could hardly believe my own senses, something caught my eye that entirely changed my whole ideas. I darted forward, my father was a few steps in front of me—the footpath was so narrow in the old town that there was often not room for two abreast—and——"

Just at this moment the door opened, and grandmother's maid appeared with the tea-tray. Molly gave an impatient shake.

"Oh, what a bother!" she said. "I quite forgot about tea. And immediately after tea it is always time for us to go to bed. It is eight o'clock now, oh grandmother, do finish the story to-night."

"And why cannot my little girl ask it without all those shakes and 'bothers?'" said grandmother. She spoke very gently, but Molly looked considerably ashamed.

"Yes, grandmother dear," she replied meekly. Then she got up from the rug and stood by aunty patiently, while she poured out the tea, first "grandmothering" each cup to keep it from slipping about, then warming them with a little hot water, then putting in the beautiful yellow cream, the sugar, and the nice rich brown tea, all in the particular way grandmother liked it done. And during the process, Molly did not once wriggle or twist with impatience, so that when she carried grandmother's tea to her, very carefully and steadily, without a drop spilling over into the saucer in the way grandmother disliked to see, she got a kiss by way of reward, and what was still better perhaps, grandmother looked up and said,

"That's my good little woman. There is not much more of what you call 'my story,' to tell, but such as it is, you may sit up to hear it, if you like."



CHAPTER VIII.

GRANDMOTHER'S STORY——(continued).

"O while you live, tell truth."

HENRY IV., Part 1.

So in a few minutes they were all settled again, and grandmother went on.

"We were walking through a very narrow street, I was telling you—was I not? when I caught sight of something that suddenly changed my ideas. 'What was this something?' you are all asking, I see. It was a china cup in a shop window we were passing, a perfect match it seemed to me of the unfortunate one still lamenting its fate by rattling its bits in my pocket! It was a shabby little old shop, of which there were a good many in the town, filled with all sorts of curiosities, and quite in the front of the window, as conspicuous as if placed there on purpose, stood the cup. I darted forward to beg my father to let me wait a moment, but just then, curiously enough, he had met a friend and was standing talking to him, and when I touched his arm, he turned rather hastily, for, as I told you, he had not been pleased with my way of replying about my grandmother. And he said to me I must not be so impatient, but wait till he had finished speaking to Mr. Lennox. I asked him if I might look in at the shop window, and he said 'Yes, of course I might,' so I flew back, the bits rattle-rattling in my pocket, and stood gazing at the twin-cup. I must tell you that I happened to have in my possession an unusual amount of money just then—ten shillings, actually ten whole shillings, which my father had given me on my birthday, and as I always brought my purse with me when I came into the town, there it was all ready! I looked and looked at the cup till I was satisfied it was a perfect match, then glancing up the street and seeing my father still talking to his friend, I crept timidly into the shop, and asked the price of the pink cup and saucer in the window.

"The old man in the shop was a German; afterwards my grandmother told me he was a Jew, and well accustomed to having his prices beaten down. He looked at me curiously and said to me,

"'Ach! too moch for leetle young lady like you. Zwanzig—twenty schelling, that cup. Old lady bought von, vill come again buy anoder. Zwanzig—twenty schelling.'

"I grew more and more eager. The old lady he spoke of must be my grandmother; I had often heard my father laugh at her for poking about old shops; I felt perfectly certain the cups were exactly alike. I begged the old man to let me have it, and opened my purse to show him all I had—the ten shilling piece, two sixpences and a fourpenny, and a few coppers. That was all, and the old man shook his head. It was too little, 'twenty schelling,' he repeated, or at the very least, to oblige the 'young lady,' fifteen. I said to him I had not got fifteen—eleven and nine-pence was everything I possessed, and at last, in my eagerness, I nearly burst into tears. I really do not know if the old man was sorry for me, or if he only thought of getting my money; however that may have been, he took my purse out of my hand and slowly counted out the money. I meanwhile, nearly dancing with impatience, while he repeated 'nine-pence, von schelling, zehn schelling ach vell, most be, most be,' and to my great delight he handed me the precious cup and saucer, first wrapping them up in a dirty bit of newspaper.



"Then he took the ten-shilling piece out of my purse, and handed it back to me, leaving me in possession of my two sixpences, my fourpenny bit, and my five coppers.

"I flew out of the shop, thanking the old man effusively, and rushed up the street clutching my treasure, while rattle-rattle went the bones of its companion in my pocket. My father was just shaking hands with Mr. Lennox and turning round to look for me, when I ran up. Mr. Lennox, it appeared, was the gentleman who was to have driven home with us, but something had occurred to detain him in the town, and he was on his way to explain this to my father when we met him.

"My father was rather silent and grave on the way home; he seemed to have forgotten that I had said anything to vex him; some magistrates' business had worried him, and it was that that he had been talking about to Mr. Lennox. He said to me that he was half afraid he would have to drive into the town again the next day, adding, 'It is a pity Lennox did not know in time. By staying a little later, we might have got all done.'

"To his astonishment I replied by begging him to let me come with him again the next day. He said to me, 'Why, Nelly, you were just now saying you did not care for going to see your grandmother, that it was dull, and tired you. What queer creatures children are.'

"I felt my cheeks grow hot, but I replied that I was sorry I had said that, and that I did want very much to go to see my grandmother again. Of course you will understand, children, that I was thinking about the best chance of putting back the cup, or rather its substitute, but my dear father thought I was sorry for having vexed him, and that I wanted to please him by asking to go again, so he readily granted my request. But I felt far from happy that evening at home, when something was said about my wanting to go again, and one of my brothers remarking that I must surely have enjoyed myself very greatly at my grandmother's, my father and mother looked at me kindly and said that their little Nelly liked to please others as well as herself. Oh how guilty I felt! I hated having anything to conceal, for I was by nature very frank. And oh, what a torment the poor cup and saucer were! I got rid of the bits by throwing them behind a hedge, but I could not tell where to hide my purchase, and I was so terribly afraid of breaking it. It was a relief to my mind the next morning when it suddenly struck me that I need not take the saucer too, the cup was enough, as the original saucer was there intact, and the cup was much easier to carry by itself.

"When we got to the town my father let me down at my grandmother's without coming in himself at all, and went off at once to his business. The door was open, and I saw no one about. I made my way up to the drawing-room as quickly and quietly as possible; to my great satisfaction there was no one there. I stole across the room to the china cupboard, drew forward a chair and climbed upon it, and, in mortal fear and trembling, placed the cup on the saucer waiting for it. They seemed to match exactly, but I could not wait to see any more—the sound of some one coming along the ante-room reached my ears—I had only just time to close the door of the cupboard, jump down and try to look as if nothing were the matter, when my grandmother entered the room. She came up to me with both her hands out-stretched in welcome, and a look on her face that I did not understand. She kissed me fondly, exclaiming,

"'My own dear little Nelly. I thought you would come. I knew you would not be happy till you had——.' But she stopped suddenly. I had drawn a little back from her, and again I felt my face get red. Why would people praise me when I did not deserve it? My grandmother, I supposed, thought I had come again because I had felt conscious of having been not particularly gracious the day before—whereas I knew my motive to have been nothing of the kind.

"'Papa was coming again, and he said I might come. I have nothing to do at home just now. It's holidays,' I said abruptly, my very honesty now leading me into misrepresentations, as is constantly the case once one has quitted the quite straight path of candour.

"My grandmother looked pained and disappointed, but said nothing. But never had she been kinder. It was past dinner time, but she ordered tea for me an hour earlier than her usual time, and sent down word that the cook was to bake some girdle-cakes, as she knew I was fond of them. And what a nice tea we might have had but for the uncomfortable little voice that kept whispering to me that I did not deserve all this kindness, that I was deceiving my grandmother, which was far worse than breaking twenty cups. I felt quite provoked with myself for feeling so uneasy. I had thought I should have felt quite comfortable and happy once the cup was restored. I had spent all, or very nearly all, my money on it. I said to myself, Who could have done more? And I determined not to be so silly and to think no more about it—but it was no good. Every time my grandmother looked at me, every time she spoke to me—worst of all when the time came for me to go and she kissed me, somehow so much more tenderly than usual, and murmured some words I could not catch, but which sounded like a little prayer, as she stroked my head in farewell—it was dreadfully hard not to burst into tears and tell her all, and beg her to forgive me. But I went away without doing so.

"Half way home a strange thought came suddenly into my mind. It seemed to express the unhappiness I was feeling. Supposing my grandmother were to die, supposing I were never to see her again, would I then feel satisfied with my behaviour to her, and would I still say to myself that I had done all for the best in spending my money on a new cup? Would I not then rather feel that it would have been less grievous to my grandmother to know of my breaking twenty cups, than to discover the concealment and want of candour into which my cowardliness had led me?

"'If grandmother were dead, I suppose she would know all about it,' I said to myself. 'I would not like to think of that. I would rather have told her myself.'

"And I startled my father by turning to him suddenly and asking if grandmother was very old. He replied, 'Not so very. Of course she is not young, but we may hope to have her among us many a day yet if God wills it, my little woman.'

"I gave a sigh of relief. 'I know she is very strong,' I said. 'She is very seldom ill, and she can take quite long walks still.'

"Thank God for it,' said my father, evidently pleased with my interest in my grandmother. And although it was true that already I was beginning to love her much more than formerly, still my father's manner gave me again the miserable feeling that I was gaining credit which I did not deserve.

"More than a week passed after this without my seeing my grandmother. It was not a happy week for me. I felt quite unlike my old light-hearted self. And constantly—just as when one has a tender spot anywhere, a sore finger for instance, everything seems to rub against it—constantly little allusions were made which appeared to have some reference to my concealment. Something would be said about my birthday present, and my brothers would ask me if I had made up my mind what I should buy with it, or they would tease me about my sudden fancy for spending two days together with my grandmother, and ask me if I was not in a hurry to go to see her again. I grew irritable and suspicious, and more and more unhappy, and before long those about me began to notice the change. My father and mother feared I was ill—'Nelly is so unlike herself,' I heard them say. My brothers openly declared 'there was no fun in playing with me now, I had grown so cross.' I felt that it was true—indeed both opinions were true, for I really was getting ill with the weight on my mind, which never, night or day, seemed to leave it.

"At last one day my father told me that he was going to drive into the little town where my grandmother lived, the next day, and that I was to go with him to see her. I noticed that he did not ask me, as usual, if I would like to go; he just said I must be ready by a certain hour, and gave me no choice in the matter. I did not want to go, but I was afraid of making any objection for fear of their asking my reasons, so I said nothing, but silently, and to all appearance I fear, sulkily, got ready as my father desired. We had a very quiet drive; my father made no remarks about my dullness and silence, and I began to be afraid that something had been found out, and that he was taking me to my grandmother's to be 'scolded,' as I called it in my silly little mind. I glanced up at his face as I sat beside him. No, he did not look severe, only grave and rather anxious. Dear father! Afterwards I found that he and my mother had been really very anxious about me, and that he was taking me to my grandmother, by her express wish, to see what she thought of the state of matters, before consulting a doctor or trying change of air, or anything of that kind. And my grandmother had particularly asked him to say nothing more to myself about my own unsatisfactory condition, and had promised him to do her utmost to put things right.

"Well—we got to my grandmother's—my father lifted me out of the carriage, and I followed him upstairs—my grandmother was sitting in the drawing-room, evidently expecting us. She came forward with a bright kind smile on her face, and kissed me fondly. Then she said to my father she was so glad he had brought me, and she hoped I would have a happy day. And my father looked at me as he went away with a sort of wistful anxiety that made me again have that horrible feeling of not deserving his care and affection. And oh, how I wished the long day alone with my grandmother were over! I could not bear being in the drawing-room, I was afraid of seeming to glance in the direction of the china cupboard; I felt miserable whenever my grandmother spoke kindly to me.

"And how kind she was that day! If ever a little girl should have been happy, that little girl was I. Grandmother let me look over the drawers where she kept her beautiful scraps of silk and velvet, ever so many of which she gave me—lovely pieces to make a costume such as I had fancied for Lady Rosabelle, but which I had never had the heart to see about. She let me 'tidy' her best work-box—a wonderful box, full of every conceivable treasure and curiosity—and then, when I was a little tired with all my exertions, she made me sit down on a footstool at her feet and talked to me so nicely—all about when she was a little girl—fancy that, Molly, your great-great-grandmother ever having been a little girl!—and about the queer legends and fairy tales that in those days were firmly believed in in the far-away Scotch country place where her childhood was spent. For the first time for all these unhappy ten days, I began to feel like myself again. Sitting there at my grandmother's feet listening to her I actually forgot my troubles, though I was in the very drawing-room I had learnt so to dread, within a few yards of the cupboard I dared not even glance at.

"There came a little pause in the conversation; I leaned my head against my grandmother's knee.

"'I wish there were fairies now,' I said. 'Don't you, grandmother?'

"Grandmother said 'no, on the whole she preferred things being as they were.' There were some fairies certainly she would be sorry to lose, Princess Sweet-temper, and Lady Make-the-best-of-it, and old Madame Tidy, and, most of all perhaps, the beautiful fairy Candour. I laughed at her funny way of saying things, but yet something in her last words made the uneasy feeling come back again. Then my grandmother went on talking in a different tone.

"'Do you know, Nelly,' she said, 'queer things happen sometimes that one would be half inclined to put down to fairies if one did not know better?'

"I pricked up my ears.

"'Do tell me what sort of things, grandmother,' I said eagerly.

"'Well'—she went on, speaking rather slowly and gravely, and very distinctly—'the other day an extraordinary thing happened among my china cups in that cupboard over there. I had one pink cup, on the side of which was—or is—the picture of a shepherdess curtseying to a shepherd. Now this shepherdess when I bought the cup, which was only a few days ago, was dressed—I am perfectly certain of it, for her dress was just the same as one I have upstairs in my collection—in a pale pink or salmon-coloured skirt, looped up over a pea-green slip—the picture of the shepherdess is repeated again on the saucer, and there it still is as I tell you. But the strangest metamorphosis has taken place in the cup. I left it one morning as I describe, for you know I always dust my best china myself. Two days after, when I looked at it again, the shepherdess's attire was changed—she had on no longer the pea-green dress over the salmon, but a salmon dress over a pea-green slip. Did you ever hear anything so strange, Nelly?'

"I turned away my head, children; I dared not look at my grandmother. What should I say? This was the end of my concealment. It had done no good—grandmother must know it all now, I could hide it no longer, and she would be far, far more angry than if at the first I had bravely confessed my disobedience and its consequences. I tried to speak, but I could not. I burst into tears and hid my face.

"Grandmother's arm was round me in a moment, and her kind voice saying, 'Why, what is the matter, my little Nelly?'

"I drew myself away from her, and threw myself on the floor, crying out to grandmother not to speak kindly to me.

"'You won't love me when you know,' I said. 'You will never love me again. It was me, oh grandmother! It was me that changed the cup. I got another for you not to know. I spent all my money. I broke it, grandmother. When you told me not to open the cupboard, I did open it, and I took out the cup, and it fell and was broken, and then I saw another in a shop window, and I thought it was just the same, and I bought it. It cost ten shillings, but I never knew it wasn't quite the same, only now it doesn't matter. You will never love me again, and nobody will. Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?'

"'Never love you again, my poor dear faithless little girl,' said grandmother. 'Oh, Nelly, my child, how little you know me! But oh, I am so glad you have told me all about it yourself. That was what I was longing for. I did so want my little girl to be true to her own honest heart.'

"And then she went on to explain that she had known it all from the first. She had not been asleep the day that I disobediently opened the cupboard, at least she had wakened up in time to see what had happened, and she had earnestly hoped that I would make up my mind to tell it frankly. That was what had so disappointed her the next day when she had quite thought I had come on purpose to tell it all. Then when my father had come to consult her about the queer state I seemed to be in, she had not felt surprised. She had quite understood it all, though she had not said so to him, and she had resolved to try to win my confidence. She told me too that she had found out from the old German about my buying the cup, whose reappearance she could not at first explain.

"'I went to his shop the very next morning,' she told me, 'to see if he still had the fellow to the cup I had bought, as I knew he had two of them, and he told me the other had been bought by a little girl. Ten shillings was too much to give for it, Nelly, a great deal too much for you to give, and more than the cup was really worth. It was not a very valuable cup, though the colour was so pretty that I was tempted to buy it to place among the others.'

"'I don't mind about the money, grandmother,' I replied. 'I would have given ever so much more if I had had it. You will keep the cup now?' I added. 'You won't make me take it back to the old man? And oh, grandmother, will you really forgive me?'

"She told me she had already done so, fully and freely, from the bottom of her heart. And she said she would indeed keep the cup, as long as she lived, and that if ever again I was tempted to distrust her I must look at it and take courage. And she explained to me that even if there had been reason for my fears, 'even if I had been a very harsh and severe grandmother, your concealment would have done no good in the end,' she said. 'It would have been like the first little tiny seed of deceit, which might have grown into a great tree of evil, poisoning all your life. Oh, Nelly, never never plant that seed, for once it has taken root who can say how difficult it may be to tear it up?'

"I listened with all my attention; I could not help being deeply impressed with her earnestness, and I was so grateful for her kindness that her advice found good soil ready to receive it. And how many, many times in my life have I not recalled it! For, Ralph and Sylvia and Molly, my darlings, remember this—even to the naturally frank and honest there come times of sore temptation in life, times when a little swerving from the straight narrow path of uprightness would seem to promise to put all straight when things have gone wrong, times when the cost seems so little and the gain so great. Ah! yes, children, we need to have a firm anchor to hold by at these times, and woe for us then if the little evil seed has been planted and has taken root in our hearts."

Grandmother paused. The children too were silent for a moment or two. Then Sylvia said gently,

"Did you tell your father and mother all about it, grandmother?"

"Yes," said grandmother, "I did—all about it. I told them everything. It was my own choice. My grandmother left it to myself. She would not tell them; she would leave it to me. And, of course, I did tell them. I could not feel happy till I had done so. They were very kind about it, very kind, but still it was to my grandmother I felt the most grateful and the most drawn. From that time till her death, when I was nearly grown up, she was my dearest counsellor and guide. I had no concealment from her—I told her everything. For her heart was so wonderfully young; to the very last she was able to sympathise in all my girlish joys, and sorrows, and difficulties."

"Like you, grandmother dear," said Molly, softly stroking her grandmother's hand, which she had taken in hers. "She must have been just like you."

They all smiled.

"And when she died," pursued grandmother gently, almost as if speaking to herself, "when she died and all her things were divided, I begged them to give me the pink cup. I might have had a more valuable one instead, but I preferred it. It is one of those two over there on the little cabinet."

Molly's eyes turned eagerly in the direction of the little cabinet. "Grandmother dear," she said, solemnly, "when you die—I don't want you to die, you know of course, but when you do die, I wish you would say that I may have that cup—will you? To remind me, you know, of what you have been telling us. I quite understand how you mean: that day all my brooches were broken, I did awfully want not to tell you about them all, and I might forget, you see, about the little bad seed and all that, that you have been telling us so nicely. Please, grandmother dear, may I have that cup when you die?"

"Molly," said Sylvia, her face growing very red, "it is perfectly horrible of you to talk that way. I am quite ashamed of you. Don't mind her, grandmother. She just talks as if she had no sense sometimes. How can you, Molly?" she went on, turning again to her sister, "how can you talk about dear grandmother dying? Dear grandmother, and you pretend to love her."

Molly's big blue eyes opened wide with astonishment, then gradually they grew misty, and great tears welled up to their surface.

"I don't pretend—I do love her," she said. "And I don't want you to die, grandmother dear, do I? only we all must die some time. I didn't mean to talk horribly. I think you are very unkind, Sylvia."

"Children, children," said grandmother's gentle voice, "I don't like these words. I am sure Molly did not mean anything I would not like, Sylvia dear, but yet I know how you mean. Don't be in such a hurry to judge each other. And about the cup, Molly, I'll consider, though I hope and believe you will not need it to remind you of the lesson I want to impress on you by the story of my long-ago troubles. Now kiss each other, dears, and kiss me, for it is quite bed-time. Good-night, my little girls. Ralph, my boy, open the door for your sisters, and pleasant dreams to you all."



CHAPTER IX.

RALPH'S CONFIDENCE.

"Sad case it is, as you may think For very cold to go to bed; And then for cold not sleep a wink."

WORDSWORTH'S Goody Blaks

"Grandmother," said Ralph, when they were all sitting at breakfast the next morning, "didn't you say that your grandmother once had an adventure that we might like to hear? It was at the beginning of the story you told us—I think it was something about the corkscrew staircase. I liked the story awfully, you know, but I'm fearfully fond of adventures."

Grandmother smiled.

"I remember saying something about it," she said, "but it is hardly worth calling an adventure, my boy. It showed her courage and presence of mind, however. She was a very brave little woman."

"Presence of mind," repeated Ralph. "Ah yes! that's a good thing to have. There's a fellow at our school who saved a child from being burnt to death not long ago. It was his little cousin where he lives. It wasn't he that told me about it, he's too modest, it was some of the other fellows."

"Who is he? what's his name?" asked Molly.

"Prosper de Lastre," replied Ralph. "He's an awful good fellow every way."

"Prosper de Lastre!" repeated Molly, who possessed among other peculiarities that of a sometimes most inconveniently good memory. "Prosper de Lastre! I do believe, Ralph, that's the very boy you called a cad when you first went to school."

Ralph's face got very red, and he seemed on the verge of a hasty reply. But he controlled himself.

"Well, and if I did," he said somewhat gruffly, "a fellow may be mistaken, mayn't he? I don't think him a cad now, and that's all about it."

Molly was preparing some rejoinder when grandmother interrupted her.

"You are quite right, Ralph, quite right not to be above owning yourself mistaken. Who can be above it really? not the wisest man that ever lived. And Molly, my dear little girl, why can you not learn to be more considerate? Do you know what 'tact' is, Molly? Did you ever hear of it?"

"Oh yes, grandmother dear," said Molly serenely. "It means—it means—oh I don't quite know, but I'm sure I do know."

"Think of it as meaning the not saying or doing to another person whatever in that other's place you would not like said or done to you—that is one meaning of tact anyway, and a very good one. Will you try to remember it, Molly?"

Molly opened her eyes.

"Yes, grandmother dear, I will try. But I think all that will be rather hard to remember, because you see people don't feel the same. My head isn't twisty-turny enough to understand things like that, quickly. I like better to go bump at them, quite straight."

"Without, in nine cases out of ten, the faintest idea what you are going to go bump straight at," said aunty, laughing. "Oh, Molly, you are irresistible!"

The laughing at her had laughed back Ralph's good humour anyway, and now he returned to the charge.

"Twisty-turny is like a corkscrew, grandmother," he said slyly, "and once there was an old house with a corkscrew stair——"

"Yes," said grandmother, "and in that old house there once lived an old lady, who, strange to say, was not always old. She was not very old at the time of the 'adventure.' You remember, children, my telling you that during her husband's life, my grandmother and he used to spend part of the winter in the old house where she afterwards ended her days. My grandfather used to drive backwards and forwards to his farms, of which he had several in the neighbourhood, and the town was a sort of central place for the season of bad weather and short days. Sometimes he used to be kept rather late, for besides his own affairs, he had, like his son, my father, a good deal of magistrate's business to attend to. But however late he was detained my grandmother always sat up for him, generally in a little sitting-room she had on the storey above the long drawing-room I have described to you, almost, that is to say, at the top of the house, from attic to basement of which ran the lung 'twisty-turny, corkscrew staircase.' One evening, about Christmas time it was, I think, my grandfather was very late of coming home. My grandmother was not uneasy, for he had told her he would be late, and she had mentioned it to the servants, and told them they need not sit up. So there she was, late at night, alone, sewing most likely—ah girls, I wish I could show you some of her sewing—in her little parlour. She was not the least nervous, yet it was a little 'eerie' perhaps, sitting up there alone so late, listening for her husband's whistle—he always whistled when he was late, so that she might be sure it was he, when she went down to open the door at his knock—and more than once she looked at the clock and wished he would come. Suddenly a step outside the room, coming up the stair, made her start. She had hardly time to wonder confusedly if it could be my grandfather, knowing all the time it could not be he—the doors were all supposed to be locked and barred, and could only be opened from the inside—when the door was flung open and some one looked in. Not my grandfather certainly; the man who stood in the doorway was dressed in some sort of rough workman's clothes, and his face was black and grimy. That was all she had time to catch sight of, for, not expecting to see her there, the intruder, startled, turned sharply round and made for the stair. Up jumped my little grandmother; she took it all in in an instant, and saw that her only chance was to take advantage of his momentary surprise and start at seeing her. Up she jumped and rushed bravely after him, making all the clatter she could. Downstairs he flew, imagining very probably in his fright that two or three people instead of one little woman were at his heels, and downstairs, round and round the corkscrew staircase, she flew after him. Never afterwards, she has often since told me, did she quite lose the association of that wild flight, never could she go downstairs in that house without the feeling of the man before her, and seeming to hear the rattle-rattle of a leathern apron he was wearing, which clattered against the banisters as he ran. But she kept her head to the end of the chase; she followed him—all in the dark, remember—down to the bottom of the staircase, and, guided by the clatter of his apron, through a back kitchen in the basement which opened into a yard—there she stopped—she heard him clatter through this cellar, banging the door—which had been left open, and through which he had evidently made his way into the house—after him, as if to prevent her following him farther. Poor thing, she certainly had no wish to do so; she felt her way to the door and felt for the key to lock it securely. But alas, when she pushed the door closely to, preparatory to locking it, it resisted her. Some one or something seemed to push against her from the outside. Then for the first time her courage gave way, and thinking that the man had returned, with others perhaps, she grew sick and faint with fright. She sank down helplessly on the floor for a moment or two. But all seemed quiet; her courage and common sense returned; she got up and felt all about the door carefully, to try to discover the obstacle. To her delight she found that some loose sand or earth driven into a little heap on the floor was what prevented the door shutting. She smoothed it away with her hand, closed the door and locked it firmly, and then, faint and trembling, but safe, made her way back to the little room where her light was burning. You can fancy how glad she was, a very few moments afterwards, to hear my grandfather's cheerful whistle outside."

"But," interrupted Molly, her eyes looking bigger and rounder than usual, "but suppose the man had been waiting outside to catch him—your grandfather—grandmother, when he came in?"

"But the man wasn't doing anything of the sort, my dear Molly. He had gone off in a fright, and when my grandmother thought it over coolly, she felt convinced that he was not a regular burglar, and so it turned out. He was a man who worked at a smithy near by, and this was his first attempt at burglary. He had heard that my grandfather was to be out late, through one of the servants, whom he had persuaded not to lock the door, on the pretense that he might be passing and would look in to say good-night. It all came out afterwards."

"And was he put in prison?" said Molly.

"No," said grandmother. "The punishments for housebreaking and such things in those days were so frightfully severe, that kind-hearted people often refrained from accusing the wrong-doers. This man had been in sore want of money for some reason or other; he was not a dishonest character. I believe the end of it was that my grandfather forgave him, and put him in the way of doing better."

"That was very nice," said Molly, with a sigh of relief.

"Good-bye," said Ralph, who was just then strapping his books together for school. "Thank you for the story, grandmother. If it is fine this afternoon," he added, "may I stay out later? I want to go a walk into the country."

"Certainly, my boy," said grandmother. "But you'll be home by dinner."

"All right," said Ralph, as he marched off.

"And grandmother, please," said Sylvia, "may Molly and I go out with Marcelline this afternoon to do some shopping? The pretty Christmas things are coming in now, and we have lots to do."

"Certainly, my dears," said grandmother again, and about two o'clock the little girls set off, one on each side of good-natured Marcelline, in high spirits, to do their Christmas shopping.

Grandmother watched them from the window, and thought how pretty they looked, and the thought earned her back to the time—not so very long ago did it seem to her now—when their mother had been just as bright and happy as they—the mother who had never lived to see them more than babies. Grandmother's eyes filled with tears, but she smiled through the tears.

"God is good and sends new blessings When the old He takes away,"

she whispered to herself. It was a blessing, a very great blessing and pleasure to have what she had so often longed for, the care of her dear little grand-daughters herself.

"And Ralph," she added, "I cannot help feeling the responsibility with him even greater. An old woman like me, can I have much influence with a boy? But he is a dear boy in many ways, and I was pleased with the way he spoke yesterday. It was honest and manly. Ah! if we could teach our boys what true manliness is, the world would be a better place than it is."

The days were beginning to close in now. By four o'clock or half-past it was almost dark, and, once the sun had gone down, cold, with a peculiar biting coldness not felt farther north, where the temperature is more equable and the contrasts less sudden.

Grandmother put on her fur-lined cloak and set off to meet the little market-women. Once, twice thrice she walked to the corner of the road—they were not to be seen, and she was beginning to fear the temptations of the shops had delayed them unduly, when they suddenly came in view; and the moment they caught sight of her familiar figure off they set, as if touched at the same instant by an electric thrill, running towards her like two lapwings.

"Dear grandmother, how good of you to come to meet us," said Sylvia. "We have got such nice things. They are in Marcelline's basket," nodding back towards Marcelline, jogging along after them in her usual deliberate fashion.

"Such nice things," echoed Molly. "But oh, grandmother dear, you don't know what we saw. We met Ralph in the town, and I'm sure he didn't want us to see him, for what do you think he was doing?"

A chill went through poor grandmother's heart. In an instant she pictured to herself all manner of scrapes Ralph might have got into. Had her thoughts of him this very afternoon been a sort of presentiment of evil? She grew white, so white that even in the already dusky light, Sylvia's sharp eyes detected it, and she turned fiercely to Molly, the heedless.

"You naughty girl," she said, "to go and frighten dear little grandmother like that. And only this very morning or yesterday grandmother was explaining to you about tact. Don't be frightened, dear grandmother. Ralph wasn't doing anything naughty, only I daresay he didn't want us to see."

"But what was he doing?" said grandmother, and Molly, irrepressible still, though on the verge of sobs, made answer before Sylvia could speak.

"He was carrying wood, grandmother dear," she said—"big bundles, and another boy with him too. I think they had been out to the little forests to fetch it. It was fagots. But I didn't mean to frighten you, grandmother; I didn't know it was untact to tell you—I have been thinking all day about what you told me."

"Carrying wood?" repeated grandmother, relieved, though mystified. "What can he have been doing that for?"

"I think it is a plan of his. I am sure it is nothing naughty," said Sylvia, nodding her head sagely. "And if Molly will just leave it alone and say nothing about it, it will be all right, you will see. Ralph will tell you himself, I'm sure, if Molly will not tease."

"I won't, I promise you I won't," said Molly; "I won't say anything about it, and if Ralph asks me if we saw him I'll screw up my lips as tight as tight, and not say a single word."

"As if that would do any good," said Sylvia contemptuously; "it would only make him think we had seen him, and make a fuss. However, there's no fear of Ralph asking you anything about it. You just see him alone when he comes in, grandmother.

"Oh dear, oh dear," sighed Molly, as they returned to the house, "I shall never understand about tact, never. We've got our lessons to do for to-morrow, Sylvia, and the verbs are very hard."

"Never mind, I'll help you," said Sylvia good-naturedly, and grandmother was pleased to see them go upstairs to their little study with their arms round each other's waists as usual—the best of friends.

Half an hour later, Ralph made his appearance. He looked rather less tidy than his wont—for as a rule Ralph was a particularly tidy boy—his hair was tumbled, and his hands certainly could not have been described as clean.

"Well, Ralph, and what have you been doing with yourself?" said grandmother, as he came in.

Ralph threw himself down on the rug.

"My poor rug," thought grandmother, but she judged it wiser not, at that moment, to express her misgivings aloud.

Ralph did not at once reply. Then—

"Grandmother," he said, after a little pause.

"Well, my boy?"

"You remember my calling one of the boys in my class a cad—what Molly began about last night?"

"Well, my boy?" said grandmother again.

"Do you remember what made me call him a cad? It was that I met him carrying a great bundle of wood—little wood they call it—along the street one day. Well, just fancy, grandmother, I've been doing it too. That's what I wanted to stay later for this afternoon."

Grandmother's heart gave a bound of pleasure at her boy's frankness. "Sensible child Sylvia is," she said to herself. But aloud she replied with a smile,

"Carrying wood! what did you do that for, and where did you get it?"

"I'll tell you, I'll tell you all about it," said Ralph. "We went out after school to a sort of little coppice where there is a lot of that nice dry brushwood that anybody may take. Prosper knew the place, and took me. It was to please him I went. He does it every Thursday; that is the day we are let out of school early."

"And what does he do it for?" asked grandmother. "Is he—are his people so very poor that he has to do it? I thought all the boys were of a better class," she added, with some inward misgiving as to what Mr. Heriott might say as to his son's present companions.

"Oh, so they are—at least they are not what you would call poor," said Ralph. "Prosper belongs to quite rich people. But he's an orphan; he lives with his uncle, and I suppose he's not rich—Prosper himself, I mean—for he says his uncle's always telling him to work hard at school, as he will have to fight his way in the world. He has got a little room up at the top of the house, and that's what put it into his head about the wood. There's an old woman, who was once a sort of a lady, who lives in the next room to his. You get up by a different stair; it's really a different house, but once, somehow, the top rooms were joined, and there's still a door between Prosper's room and this old woman's, and one morning early he heard her crying—she was really crying, grandmother, she's so old and shaky, he says—because she couldn't get her fire to light. He didn't know what she was crying for at first, but he peeped through the keyhole and saw her fumbling away with damp paper and stuff that wouldn't light the big logs. So he thought and thought what he could do—he hasn't any money hardly—and at last he thought he'd go and see what he could find. And he found a beautiful place for brushwood, and he carried back all he could, and since then every Thursday he goes out to that place. But, of course, one fellow alone can't carry much, and you should have seen how pleased he was when I said I'd go with him. But I thought I'd better tell you. You don't mind, grandmother?"



Grandmother's eyes looked very bright as she replied. "Mind, my Ralph? No, indeed. I am only glad you should have so manly and self-denying an example as Prosper's, and still more glad that you should have the right feeling and moral courage to follow it. Poor old woman! is she quite alone in the world? She must be very grateful to her little next-door neighbour."

"I don't know that she is—at least not so very," said Ralph. "The fun of it was, that for ever so long she didn't know where the little wood came from. Prosper found a key that opened the door, and when she was out he carried in the fagots, and laid the fire all ready for her with some of them; and when she came in he peeped through the keyhole. She was so surprised, she couldn't make it out. And the wood he had fetched lasted a week, and then he got some more. But the next time she found him out."

"And what did she say?"

"At first she was rather offended, till he explained how he had got it; and then she thanked him, of course, but not so very much, I fancy. He always says old people are grumpy—doesn't 'grogneur' mean grumpy, grandmother?—that they can't help it, and when his old woman is grumpy he only laughs a little. But you're not grumpy, grandmother, and you're old; at least getting rather old."

"Decidedly old, my boy. But why should I be grumpy? And how do you know I shouldn't be so if I were living up alone in an attic, with no children to love and cheer me, my poor old hands swollen and twisted with rheumatism, perhaps, and very little money. Ah, what a sad picture! Poor old woman, I must try to find out some way of helping her."

"She washes lace for ladies, Prosper says," said Ralph, eagerly. "Perhaps if you had some lace to wash, grandmother."

"I'll see what I can do," said grandmother. "You get me her name and address from Prosper. And, Ralph, we might think of something for a little Christmas present for her, might we not? You must talk to your friend about it. I suppose his relations are not likely to interest themselves in his protegee?"

"No," said Ralph. "His aunt is young, and dresses very grandly, and I don't think she takes much notice of Prosper himself. Oh no, you could do it much better than any one else, grandmother; find out all about her and what she would like—in a nice sort of way, you know."

Grandmother drew Ralph to her and kissed him. "My own dear boy," she said.

Ralph got rather red, but his eyes shone with pleasure nevertheless. "Grandmother," he said, half shyly, "I've had a lesson about not calling fellows cads in a hurry, but all the same you won't forget about telling us the story of Uncle Jack's cad, will you?"

"What a memory you have, Ralph," said grandmother. "You're nearly as bad for stories as Molly. No, I haven't forgotten. As well as I could remember, I have written out the little story—I only wish I had had it in your uncle's own words. But such as it is, I will read it to you all this evening."

Grandmother went to her Davenport, and took out from one of the drawers some sheets of ruled paper, which she held up for Ralph to see. On the outside one he read, in grandmother's neat, clear handwriting, the words——



CHAPTER X.

—"THAT CAD SAWYER."

"I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, The reason why I cannot tell."

OLD RHYME.

And grandmother of course kept her promise. That evening she read it aloud.

"They were Ryeburn boys—Ryeburn boys to their very heart's core—Jack and his younger brother Carlo, as somehow he had got to be called in the nursery, before he could say his own name plainly."

"That's uncle Charlton, who died when he was only about fifteen," whispered Sylvia to Ralph and Molly; "you see grandmother's written it out like a regular story—not saying 'your uncle this' or 'your uncle that,' every minute. Isn't it nice?"

Grandmother stopped to see what all the whispering was about.

"We beg your pardon, grandmother, we'll be quite quiet now," said the three apologetically.

"They had been at school at Ryeburn since they were quite little fellows, and they thought that nowhere in the world was there a place to be compared with it. Holidays at home were very delightful, no doubt, but school-days were delightful too. But for the sayings of good-byes to the dear people left at home—father and mother, big sister and little one, I think Jack and Carlo started for their return journey to school at the end of the midsummer holidays very nearly as cheerfully as they had set off for home eight weeks previously, when these same delightful holidays had begun. Jack had not very many more half-years to look forward to: he was to be a soldier, and before long must leave Ryeburn in preparation for what was before him, for he was fifteen past. Carlo was only thirteen and small of his age. He had known what it was to be homesick, even at Ryeburn, more than three years ago, when he had first come there. But with a big brother—above all a big brother like Jack, great strong fellow that he was, with the kindest of hearts for anything small or weak—little Carlo's preliminary troubles were soon over. And now at thirteen he was very nearly, in his way, as great a man at Ryeburn as Jack himself. Jack was by no means the cleverest boy at the school, far from it, but he did his book work fairly well, and above all honestly. He was honesty itself in everything, scorned crooked ways, or whatever he considered meanness, with the exaggerated scorn of a very young and untried character, and, like most boys of his age, was inclined, once he took up a prejudice, to carry it to all lengths.

"There was but one cloud over their return to school this special autumn that I am telling you of, and that was the absence of a favourite master—one of the younger ones—who, an unexpected piece of good luck having fallen to his share, had left Ryeburn the end of the last half.

"'I wonder what sort of a fellow we shall have instead of Wyngate,' said Jack to Carlo, as the train slackened for Ryeburn station.

"'We shan't have any one as nice, that's certain,' said Carlo, lugubriously. 'There couldn't be any one as nice, could there?'

"But their lamentations over Mr. Wyngate were forgotten when they found themselves in the midst of their companions, most of whom had already arrived. There were such a lot of things to tell and to ask; the unfortunate 'new boys' to glance at with somewhat supercilious curiosity, and the usual legendary caution as to 'chumming' with them, till it should be proved what manner of persons they were; the adventures of the holidays to retail to one's special cronies; the anticipated triumphs in cricket and football and paper-chases of the forthcoming 'half' to discuss. Jack and Carlo soon found themselves each the centre of his particular set, too busy and absorbed in the present to give much thought to the past. Only later that evening, when prayers were over and supper-time at hand, did the subject of their former teacher and his successor come up again.

"A pale, thin, rather starved-looking young man came into the schoolroom desiring them to put away their books, which they were arranging for next morning. His manner was short but ill-assured, and he spoke with a slightly peculiar accent. None of the boys seemed in any hurry to obey him.

"'Cod-faced idiot!' muttered one.

"'French frog!' said another.

"'Is that the new junior?' said Jack, looking up from the pile of books before him.

"'Yes; did you ever see such a specimen?' replied a tall boy beside him, who had arrived the day before. 'And what a fellow to come after Wyngate too.'

"'He can't help his looks,' said Jack quietly; 'perhaps he's better than they are.'

"'Hallo, here's old Berkeley going to stick up for that nice specimen Sawyer!' called out the boy, caring little apparently whether Mr. Sawyer, who had only just left the room, was still within ear-shot or not.

"Jack took it in good part.

"'I'm not 'sticking up' for him, nor 'not sticking up' for him,' he said. 'All I say is, wait a bit till you see what sort of a fellow he is himself, whatever his looks are.'

"'And most assuredly they're not in his favour,' replied the tall boy.

"From this Jack could not honestly dissent; Mr. Sawyer's looks were not, in a sense, in his favour. It was not so much that he was downright ugly—perhaps that would have mattered less—but he was poor looking. He had no presence, no self-assertion, and his very anxiety to conciliate gave his manner a nervous indecision, in which the boys saw nothing but cause for ridicule. He did not understand his pupils, and still less did they understand him. But all the same he was a capital teacher, patient and painstaking to the last degree, clear-headed himself, and with a great power, when he forgot his nervousness in the interest of his subject, of making it clear to the apprehensions of those about him. In class it was impossible for the well-disposed of his pupils not to respect him, and in time he might have fought his way to more, but for one unfortunate circumstance—the unreasonable and unreasoning prejudice against him throughout the whole school.