"I'll give him a flogging that he won't forget in a hurry," said Jacob, who, having been much frightened, was now very angry. He laid hands on the supposed culprit, and led him out into the hall. There he took a whip from its place on the wall, and desired Frank to take off his jacket, which Frank, trembling and tearful but silent, was doing, when, from some hiding-place, Fred rushed out, crying— "'Twas me did it; you s'ant beat Fwank." "You! I don't believe it," said Mrs. Rayburn; "why, you're only a baby." "I'm not!" cried Fred. "I stwuck a match and set your cap in a blaze, and then I wan for Fwank to put it out." "Hold your tongue, Fred," said the elder boy; "he'd kill you; you're too little to bear it." Jacob, uttering some queer, inarticulate sound, hung up the whip and walked oft. As long as he lived, he never forgot the look of the slender little lad standing there ready to bear anything to shield his little brother. Mrs. Rayburn, thus left to her own devices, took the two children to her sitting-room, and opened a queer little hiding-hole in the thickness of the wall, into which she pushed Frank, saying— "There you both stay, till my lord says what is to be done with you;" and she was in the act of pushing Fred in too, when he dived suddenly under her ample skirts and fled, nor could she find him, though she followed as soon as she had shut Frank in. Frank sat down on the floor of his prison, and tried to collect his thoughts. He had not quite succeeded when the door of the closet was softly opened, and little Fred crept in. "Oh, Fwank, she'll send me away and keep you!" "How do you know?" "I was hid away in the big room, and she and Mawia came in to dust it and make weady; and she was telling Mawia." "Yes; tell me what they said." "Said I was a awful bad child, and that there was no managing the two of us. Gwandma said she'd keep you and send me away; my lord would manage it for her." Frank scrambled to his feet. "She'd send you to the poorhouse! Fred, it was very bad of you to set the cap on fire, and you must never do such a thing again. But she shan't part us. Who would take care of you? And I promised muddie I would. I will, too. We'll slip out—the great gate is open still, or I'd have heard the clang—and we'll run away." "Oh, jolly, jolly!" cried Fred, performing as lively a dance as the space would permit. "We'll wun away and be beggars! Won't it be fun?" "It can't be wrong," Frank said thoughtfully. "She'd part us, and—no, it must be right for me to save you. We'll go to Liverpool, and find our school. Mrs. Crane was very kind to us, and she'll find out where muddie is for us. That's what we'll do. Fred, stay here till I come back. I must go to our room to get my money." He was the proud possessor of a few shillings, which his mother had given him, and a sixpence with a hole in it, given him "by father years ago," he said himself.