"Mr. Rosewarne," she began, when they were alone, "if I began to say what I think of this business, a person of your instincts would at once fall to supposing that I shifted the blame on to your shoulders, which is just the last thing in the world I mean to do. But precisely because I am guilty, and precisely because I accept responsibility for my steward's actions, a steward who conceals his actions is of no use to me. You are dismissed." CHAPTER XX. AN OUTBURST. "I saw the new moon late yestreen, Wi' the auld moon in her arm." "Miss Marvin, does 'yestreen' mean 'last night'?" "It does." "Then I wish the fellow would say 'last night,'" grumbled Master Calvin. "And how could the new moon have the old moon in her arm?" Hester explained. "But moons haven't arms." He pushed the book away pettishly. "I hate this poetry! Why can't you teach me what I want?" "That," said Hester, "is just what I am trying to discover. Will you tell me what you want?" To her amazement, he bent his head down upon his arms and broke into sobbing. "I don't know what I want! Everyone hates me, and I--I hate it all!" Somehow, Hester--who had started by misliking the child, and only with the gravest misgivings (yielding to pressure from his father) had consented to teach him in her spare hours--was beginning to pity him. This new feeling, to be sure, suffered from severe and constant checks; for he was unamiable to the last degree, and seldom awoke a spark of liking but he killed it again, and within five minutes, by doing or saying something odious. He differed from other children, and differed unpleasantly. He had taken the full tinge of his sanctimonious upbringing; he was pharisaical, cruel at times, incurably twisted by his father's creed that wrong becomes right when committed by a pious person from pious motives. (His mother had once destroyed a cat because she found herself growing fond of it and believed that a Christian's soul must be weaned of all earthly affections.) He appealed to Hester's pity because, with all this, he was unhappy. She had been teaching him languidly and inattentively to-day, being preoccupied with a letter in her pocket; and to this letter, having set him to learn his verses from Sir Patrick Spens, she let her thoughts wander. It ran:--