"In good sooth, Master, but you lack as much looking after, in your way, as Mrs Clare doth; for verily your head is so lapped in your books and your learning, that I do think, an' I tended you not, you should break your fast toward eventide, and bethink you but to-morrow at noon that you had not supped overnight." "Very like, Barbara,--very like!" answered the old man with a meek smile. "Thou hast been a right true maid unto me and mine,--as saith Solomon of the wise woman, thou hast done us good and not evil, all the days of thy life. The Lord apay thee for it!--Now go thou forward, and search for our little maid, and I will abide hither until thou bring her. If I mistake not much, thou shalt find her within a stone's throw of the fishpond." "The fishpond?--eh, Master!" And Barbara quickened her steps to a run, while John Avery sat down slowly upon a stone seat on the terrace, leaning both hands on his staff, as if he could go no farther. Was he very tired? No. He was only very, very near Home. Close to the fishpond, peering intently into it between the gaps of the stone balustrade, Barbara at length found what she sought, in the shape of a little girl of six years old. The child was spoiling her frock to the best of her ability, by lying on the snow-sprinkled grass; but she was so intent upon something which she saw, or wanted to see, that her captor's approach was unheard, and Barbara pounced on her in triumph without any attempt at flight. "Now, Mrs Clare, [a fictitious character] come you hither with me!" said Barbara, seizing the culprit. "Is this to be a good child, think you, when you were bidden abide in the nursery?" "O Bab!" said the child, half sobbingly. "I wanted to see the fishes." "You have seen enough of the fishes for one morrow," returned Barbara relentlessly; "and if the fishes could see you, they should cry shame upon you for ruinating of your raiment by the damp grass." "But the fishes be damp, Bab!" remonstrated Clare. Barbara professed not to hear the last remark, and lifting the small student of natural history, bore her, pouting and reluctant, to her grandfather on the terrace. "So here comes my little maid," said he, pleasantly. "Why didst not abide in the nursery, as thou wert bid, little Clare?" "I wanted to see the fishes," returned Clare, still pouting. "We cannot alway have what we want," answered he. "You can!" objected Clare. "Nay, my child, I cannot," gravely replied her grandfather. "An' I could, I would have alway a good, obedient little grand-daughter." Clare played with Mr Avery's stick, and was silent. "Leave her with me, good Barbara, and go look after thy mighty charges," said her master, smiling. "I will bring her within ere long." Barbara trotted off, and Clare, relieved from the fear of her duenna, went back to her previous subject. "Gaffer, what do the fishes?" "What do they? Why, swim about in the water, and shake their tails, and catch flies for their dinner."