“Nay, Betty, I thought thou wert my little friend, and felt sorry that those cruel men at the Bay will presently serve me worse than they did my friend Master Morton.” “He was here, and I liked him not at all. He miscalled Alick’s father, and mother would not make jelly for him though he asked it of her.” “So! What a little partisan thou art, Betty! and I’ll venture thy mother is, too. But, Betty, there was another man there at Boston, whom they whipped until the blood ran down to his heels, and then they cut off his ears, and laid a hot iron on his cheek”-- “Oh, sir!” And Gardiner paused, startled at the power of expression developed in that little flower-face by horror, and anger, and pity beyond its years. His own face softened to perhaps its best expression as, laying a hand upon the glittering hair, he kindly said,-- “Nay, then, ’tis not a tale for the ears of a little maid; but thou’dst not like to have me so served, if thou couldst hinder?” “Oh, sir, but how can I hinder?” “Why, I know not that thou canst, and yet--the first way is to keep my counsel even from thy mother.” “I always tell mother, and sometimes father, all I do, but--I will not tell what can harm you, sir; only please tell me no more.” “But, Betty, dear little Betty, I was just going to ask you to do me one little kindness, and tell nobody about it. Won’t you be the friend of a poor wretch who is to be so cruelly used if you do refuse to help him?” “Indeed and indeed, sir, I would help you at one word if I could, but I may not tell a lie, even though to save you and me too from a den of lions.” “Daniel, eh? Well, little Daniel, I ask thee to tell no lies, nor to do anything to hurt thy tender conscience, but only to carry a little folded bit of paper to Mistress Priscilla Carpenter, and fetch me another which she will send.” “Oh, I can do so much as that, sir,” replied Betty, relieved at what seemed to her a very harmless proposition. “But you must give her the billet when she is all alone, Betty, and you must not let any one--not any one, mind--know a word about it from first to last. Can you do that?” “Oh, yes, easy enough,--but”--and Betty pondered, finger on lip; then suddenly turning her brook-brown eyes upon the dark face of the man of the world, she demanded, “Is it right for me to do it, sir? Since I may not ask mother or father, you must tell me, sir, is it right?” Nobody knows why Sir Christopher Gardiner fled his native land, nor why he dreaded to put himself in reach of its authorities; but whatever may have been his crimes, I believe none injured his own soul more, none at the last day will hang more like a millstone around his neck, than the offense he now offered to the little one who made him for the moment her arbiter of right and wrong; for he said, but turned away from her eyes while he said,--