“I know,” said Victoria; “I feel as if we had misjudged Aunt Sophia. She means to be kind to us, and if she has that unfortunate way of acting as if she wanted to run the entire universe, I suppose we ought to make the best of it. It is only her disposition, and as she has had plenty of money all her life, and no one to interfere with her, I suppose there is some excuse for it. She really has been very nice this summer, and it didn’t turn out as badly as I was afraid it would. After all, Peter, I think you are right. We oughtn’t to refuse everything she offers, and it would be of great advantage to you to go to St. Asaph’s. If only she allows the rest of us to continue to earn our living in peace!” “Look, Vic!” exclaimed Sophy, in an excited whisper. “Who is that peeping up over the river bank? Look, Peter!” They gazed in the direction that Sophy indicated, but could see nothing. “I’m sure it was somebody,” continued Sophy, still in the same eager whisper, “and it looked like Dave Carney!” At this Peter jumped to his feet, and nimbly leaping from rock to rock, ran to the river bank some little distance away. The girls watched him. They saw that he was speaking to some one below the bank. He did not return, and unable to restrain their curiosity further, they too left the rock and followed him. They found him in earnest conversation with a boy in a boat, and that boy was David Carney. “Why, Dave!” cried Victoria; “have you come back? I am so glad to see you!” Dave shyly pulled off his cap. “He says he hasn’t come back to us,” said Peter. “He didn’t mean us to see him. He only came to take a look at the place.” “Why did you run away, Dave?” asked Victoria. “I ran away because I knowed it was Jim,” said Carney, looking up at her as she stood above him on the bank. “He always said he was agoing to break into your house sometime. He wanted me to help, but I wouldn’t have nothing to do with it. That made him mad, and we had a quarrel. Jim got into bad company down at Fordham, and I guess they got him into this scrape.” “I always thought your brother couldn’t be a very nice person,” said Sophy, who had been watching Dave with round and solemn eyes. “He used regular swear words that day I met him with you.” “I’d have been as bad myself if it hadn’t been for you folks,” said Dave. “I’d have gone straight after him if you hadn’t caught me that time when I was stealing those apples,” he added, looking at Peter. “I only did that because I was hungry. It was the first time, but I guess it wouldn’t have been the last. That morning when they told me there’d been a robbery, I knowed it was Jim, and I couldn’t stay. I knowed you’d think it was me that done it if I ran away, but I couldn’t stay in the place where you folks had been so good to me, and my own brother had broke into the house.” “And what have you been doing ever since?” asked Peter.