“Neither he has, Miss Queenie. Poor man, he lost them all. The little boy he has with him now is the one, you know, who drifted ashore after the last storm, who doesn’t know who he is nor where he came from, poor little fellow.” “Why doesn’t he?” “He can’t remember; he’s forgotten it all. His head was hurt somehow, and when he got better he’d forgotten everything he knew about himself.” “How funny!” cried Queenie. “I wonder what it feels like to forget everything like that.” The nurse shook her head, and Queenie went on with her own train of thought. “I think it would be rather nice to forget everything and begin again quite fresh. It would be so funny. I should like to forget all my lessons, and to go on forgetting them, so that by and by people would say it was no good teaching me any more, and I should do just as I liked all day.” “You would soon be very glad to go back to your lessons again, Miss Queenie,” answered the nurse, quietly. “There is nothing in the world so dull as having no regular employment.” This wise remark did not provoke any ridicule from Queenie at this moment, as it would usually have done. She had other things to think of now. “Why has the little boy gone to the Manor House?” she asked. “I suppose the Squire asked him there. You see he has no friends to take care of him—at least he cannot find them yet. The Squire is a very kind man.” “Mamma doesn’t like him,” remarked Queenie. “She tells people he is very unsociable, and does not treat her with proper respect. I think he looks a nice old man. I met him once when I was out on my pony, and had run away from William and lost him. He picked up my whip for me because I’d dropped it, and when I thanked him, he smiled and looked quite kind, though in church he is always so grave and solemn. But I can’t think why he should take a little fisherman’s boy to live in his house.” The nurse smiled a little. “Who told you he was a fisherman’s boy, Miss Queenie?” Queenie tossed her little curly head with the air of one who half resents such a question. “Why, of course he is! everybody knows that. He lived ever so many days in that dirty little hut with the Wickhams. I saw him one day on the sands, playing with David. Only quite a common boy could possibly think of doing _that_!” The nurse smiled again. “Well, Miss Queenie, however that may be, there are other opinions about the little boy. Anyway, he is living at the Manor House now, and Mrs. Pritchard does not think it beneath her to wait upon him,—fisherman’s boy or no.” Queenie listened with interest to this account of the little stranger; but she would not admit that she could possibly be mistaken in her estimate of him. “I’ve seen him,” she said; “he was dressed in horrid old clothes. I’m quite sure _he_ can’t be a gentleman’s son. It’s quite ridiculous!”