"Papa married twice," Addie explained--"the first time when he was very young. I don't think his first wife was _quite_ a lady," she said, lowering her voice as if the beeches might be given to gossiping. Percival would not have been happy as a dweller in the Palace of Truth. He thought, "Then Mr. Blake's two wives were alike in _one_ respect." "And though Oliver was a dear boy," she went on, "he hasn't been very steady. He has had a good deal of money at one time or another, and wasted it; and he and mamma don't get on at all." "Ah! I dare say not." "Naturally, she thinks more about Lottie and me; and Oliver has been very tiresome. He was to be in the business with papa, but he didn't do anything, and he got terribly into debt, and then he ran away and enlisted. Papa bought him off, and found him something else to do; but mamma was dreadfully vexed: she said it was a disgrace to the family." "Did he do better after that?" "Not much," Addie owned. "In fact, I think he has spent most of his time since then in running away and enlisting. I really believe he has been in a dozen regiments. We were always having to write to him, 'Private Oliver Blake, Number so and so, C company, such a regiment.' It didn't look well at all." (Addie, as she spoke, remembered how her mother used to sneer, "No doubt some day you'll meet your _brother_ in a red jacket with a little cane, his cap very much on one side, and a tail of nursemaids wheeling their perambulators after him." Such remarks had been painful to Addie, but even then she had felt that Mrs. Blake had cause to complain.) "He was always bought off, I suppose?" said Percival. "Once papa declared he wouldn't. Oliver went on very quietly for a little while, and was to be a corporal. Then he wrote and said he was going to desert that day week, and he was afraid it might be very awkward for him afterward, especially if he ever enlisted again, but he would take his chance sooner than stop. Papa knew he would do it, so he had to buy him off again." "But is this going on for ever?" "No: for the last three years Oliver has been in dreadful disgrace, I don't exactly know why, and we were not allowed to mention his name at home. But I don't care," said Addie impetuously: "if he were ever so foolish, and if he had enlisted in every regiment under the sun, he's my brother." "And Lottie? Does she stand by him as valiantly?" "Oliver is nothing to Lottie: he never was. He is nine years older than she is, and when she would really begin to remember him he and mamma were always quarrelling. Besides, he always petted me--not Lottie. And now she despises him because he doesn't stick to anything and get on. No--poor old Noll is _my_ brother, only mine. No one else cares for him, except papa." "Mr. Blake hasn't given him up, then?"