"I don't know," said Wyn. "Who does?" "Maybe the master do." "Mr Cunningham? What did Harry do?" "Well, Florrie, so far as I know--only I don't think mother knows I know it--he ran away with poor Mr Alwyn." "Ran away? What for?" "Well, they was up at Ravenshurst having a lark--which they oughtn't to have had anything to do with--and the lady's jewels were all stolen at the same time. So folks say Harry did it--but whether Mr Alwyn knew-- they never came back again." "Why should they put it on Harry?" "He was always playing tricks." "Playing tricks isn't stealing," said Florence. "Well, but," said Wyn, "it isn't as if he'd stood his trial--he ran away. And they say master had never have banished Mr Alwyn if he hadn't done something downright disgraceful." "Does no one ever talk about him?" "Well, old Granny do sometimes to mother; and once I saw his picture, and Harry's too." "Where?" "Well," said Wyn, lowering his voice, "since you're his sister I'll tell you. One day last winter Mr Edgar was ill, and couldn't come out of doors, and I went to tell him how all the creatures were; but he didn't seem to take much interest, his back ached so. But he asked me to fetch him a little leather case out of a drawer, and he opened it and looked at it, and he let it fall. And when I picked it up I saw it was a photograph, and suddenly Mr Edgar said, `Look at it, Wyn;' and there was my brother Ned and your brother Harry--I knew it must be--and a tall young gentleman, all sitting in the forest under the big beech with their guns, and Mr Edgar sitting swinging on the bough behind them, like other people, and Mr Edgar put his finger on Mr Alwyn's picture and said, `If ever you see him again, Wyn, tell him I showed this to you. Don't you forget.' I ain't likely to forget." "May be they're dead," said Florrie. "Why, Florence, I look at it like this: It ain't very likely two young men would both die. I think it over often," said Wyn, "for I know Mr Edgar thinks of it. There's places in the wood where I know he thinks of it, and I'd like to hunt all over the world to find Mr Alwyn and bring him back." Florence was older than Wyn, and a good deal more versed in the world's ways. "I expect they were a couple of bad ones," she said, "or they'd have been back before now. Well, people may say I take after Harry; but I'll never run away, not if they tell any number of talcs of me." "Hush," said Wyn, "here's Grace Elton. Don't you say nothing, Florence, to _no_ one." "I ain't given to blabbing," said Florence coolly. Grace Elton was a pleasant, well-dressed girl, though in a far quieter style than Florence. Wyn fell behind with a pair of boy Eltons, and the girls chatted until they reached the little whitewashed school--close by the church, with a great climbing rose hanging over its rustic doorway.