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Oh, thanks!" I exclaimed, taking the proffered gift eagerly; and the emphasis with which I spoke, testified to the sincerity of my gratitude more plainly than many words.

Nothing further passed between us, only as my teeth closed over the delicious morsel, I sank back into the same train of thought from which her voice had roused me.

Before long my reflections found relief in words.

"Anne," I said, my mouth rather awkwardly full, and my cheeks doing their best to turn a shade deeper red than the fire had already left them, "Anne, do you know I'm quite afraid to go outside the gates, especially into the village, for fear Mrs. Rylands should see me."

"An' what if she did?"

"Oh, I thought,-I thought, maybe, she would be so angry with us about her husband, you know, because we helped to put him in prison, you see, and don't you think if she caught any of us she would be ready to—”

I paused; I couldn't think of anything she would be likely to do, to meet the seriousness of the case, short of almost killing us.

"Bless the child!" exclaimed Anne, laughing. "She 'ud be ready to hug you a'most. Why, there hasn't such a stroke of good fortune happened to her, not since the day that she was married. The only pity is that he'll be out again,-if they gives him the longest time they can, at the ''sizes,' he'll be out again afore she's got fairly used to the comfort and quiet of being without him. She was up here with some wood fagots, just afore you came out of school, an' I don't know when I've seen her so jolly and lively. She's written right off to her son to come back home again from Bristol. He's been away these two year. He an' his father were always quarrellin' so fearfully, that at last he was turned out of the house-an' it was all along of his not bein' able to stand quietly by an' see his mother knocked about so, after he was growed up big and strong enough to defend her.

"Poor thing! she have missed him, too, an' no mistake! for a right-down good son he's been to her. She will be glad to have him home again, just about."

Anne grew so excited and eager over her recital of the Rylands' family history, that I strongly suspect there was some one else, beside the mother, who would be only too pleased to welcome home the wandering son and heir.

Sam turned round to listen with great interest, as soon as he heard about the son daring the father to touch his mother.

"And won't the donkeys be glad, eh?" he said, his eyes twinkling merrily; "if their bodies were only as light as their spirits, they would feel inclined to jump over their new master's head, just as the old one used to over theirs."

"Just look at your toast, Master Sam,-it's all of a blaze!" interrupted Anne, in a tone of horrified alarm.

"Oh, no matter!" responded the Scamp, coolly, attempting to ward off Anne, as she came hurrying up to the rescue. "I'll soon blow it out. Besides, Miss Royce will like it all the better, for she said, the other day, that you couldn't bake it too black to suit her so it will just be a beautiful tit-bit for her!"

In his desire to prevent Anne from assisting with the extinguishing of the flames, Sam had turned his back upon her, and consequently upon the door communicating with the passage, at which, that very moment, Miss Royce had unexpectedly appeared. Anne and I caught sight of her directly, and found the utmost difficulty in checking our laughter, as we saw that she stood still to catch what Sam was saying, an amused smile hovering round her lips as she beckoned to us not to betray her presence by our mirth. I tried to cram my last remaining morsel of hot toast into my already overfull mouth, in the deluded hope that I might thereby avoid being discovered munching what-if not forbidden-was, at any rate, an unauthorized dainty; but though I almost choked myself in the attempt to make full fuller, I have a distinct impression that as she looked across at me, her left eye closed and opened

again meaningly, in a way which, in any one less dignified, would have been at once set down as a very knowing wink.

"And so you conclude that as long as you produce the same effect, it is of no consequence whether you bake or burn it black,-is that your idea, Sam ?”

You should have seen how Sam jumped, as soon as he heard himself addressed,-"just as though he'd been shot," as Anne said.

"I didn't mean to do it," stammered Sam; "it caught of itself,—it did, indeed. But I thought it wouldn't matter, 'cause I've heard you say you didn't mind how black it was," and he looked up into Miss Royce's face, with a comical expression of fear and amusement upon his own. "If you like, I'll make

another piece, instead."

"No, indeed, I shouldn't like to trust you!" replied Miss Royce, dryly.

Then, without any further remark, she took the fork away from him, broke off a large corner of the charred toast, and spreading over it a moderately thick coating of butter, presented it to him, saying, "Here you are, Sam! If you can so highly recommend it to me, I am sure you must be longing to try a bit yourself, so I will make you a present of this little piece."

Sam took it with a sheepish air, for though he knew that Miss Royce was only doing it for the sake of teazing him, he did not quite like to refuse.

Placing it gingerly between his teeth, he bit off a small corner and began to scrunch it up. The next moment, with a cry of intense disgust, he was bounding nimbly across the floor to the back kitchen, flinging down the untasted portion as he sped past the table, with an emphatic gesture of abhorrence that expressed his opinion as to its merits, quite as strongly as the words which he was unable to utter could possibly have done.

CHAPTER XIX.

PICKLES.

ONE Saturday afternoon, soon afterwards, we were given permission to go blackberrying, and highly pleased we were, too, to avail ourselves of the opportunity. We were hastily running to and fro to get ready, and to collect the necessary baskets, when I noticed Mat running up to Miss Royce, and heard him say, "Oh, if you please, Miss Royce, may I take Billy with us?" Miss Royce looked down upon the earnest, pleading, little face with a reflective expression on her own.

"You can't pick blackberries and attend to Billy too."

“Oh yes, I can. I'll take the reins, you know, and fasten them round my arm when I'm picking, then he can't stray.” "Very well, I have no objection; only what will Hero say to the arrangement? for you certainly can't go running after him as well.”

"Hero won't mind," laughed Mat. friends as possible, and they've been times; you know that quite well, Miss

"Why, they are as good

out together scores of Royce,” he continued,

wondering at her having raised such an objection.

"I merely meant that Hero will become jealous, perhaps ; for of course the largest share of your divided attention will have to be bestowed upon Billy."

"Yes, I know that,—but he won't mind," reiterated Mat. "He often comes and walks beside him, when we are out for a

walk perhaps he thinks Billy must feel lonely since poor old Nanny died."

So Mat gained his point, and, calling to me to come and help him, ran swiftly out of doors, and away to the little green at the back of the house, to unloose Billy from the stout iron rod to which he was tethered.

Billy was no other than a favourite white goat, of so gentle a disposition, and such beautiful form, that he was firmly established as one of the prime pets of the school. He was lying quietly down upon the grass as we approached, but as soon as he caught sight of us, he wriggled himself hastily to his feet, and ran quickly towards us, with a plaintive little bleat of expectancy and pleasure.

But very soon the length of his tether pulled him up with a sudden jerk that almost sent him reeling, and then, wheeling round in a small uncertain circle, he strained and tugged at his chain with so much impatient vigour, that any weaker tie than that which kept him fastened within his appointed limits, would have snapped asunder directly.

Mat patted him affectionately, and in his own funny manner began to tell him of his good fortune in being taken for a run; a piece of news which Billy seemed to understand and appreciate at once, judging by the way in which he whisked his short, wiry tail about, and the restless attempts he kept making to set off, before Mat had had time to unfasten his collar.

“Hold him, half a minute, Bernie, while I slip the reins on; be quiet, Billy, do!" cried Mat in the same breath to both of us.

Then he lightly placed one leg across his back, so as to get at him better, as he said, and very soon Billy was fully harnessed with the light pair of strong leather reins which Mat had brought for his better control.

We usually equipped him in this fashion when we took him out-it was such fun driving him; perhaps that was the chief reason, but then it really saved a deal of trouble in looking after him, for, if left to himself, he was sure to go scampering

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