'I am sorry,' said Mrs. Morton, 'for, as I told you, her father was the mate aboard the _Emma Jane_, my poor father's ship, you know, and went down with poor pa and my poor dear Charlie. And her mother used to char for us, which was but her due.' 'Yes, I know,' said Mary; 'Frank and I were both very sorry, and we would have found her another place, but she would go home. You see, we could not keep her in the nursery, for we must have a thoroughly trustworthy person to go out with Michael.' 'What! Can't your fine nurse?' 'Eden? It is her one imperfection. It is some weakness of the spine, and neither she nor I can be about with Michael as long as it is good for him. I thought he must be safe in the garden, but it turned out that Louisa had been taking him down to the village, and there meeting a sailor, who I believe came up in a collier to Colbeam.' 'Oh, an old friend from Westhaven?' 'Sam Rattler,' suggested Ida. 'Don't you remember, mamma, Mrs. Hall said they were sweethearting, and she wanted to get her out of the way of him.' 'Perhaps,' said Lady Northmoor, 'but I should have forgiven it if she had told me the truth and not tempted Mite. She used to make excuses to Eden for going down to the village, and at last she took Mite there, and they gave him sweets at the shop not to tell!' 'Did he?' said Ida, rather hoping the model boy would have failed. 'Oh yes. The dear little fellow did not understand keeping things back, and when his papa was giving him his nightly sugar-plum, he said, "Blue man gave me a great striped sweet, and it stuck in my little teeth"; and then, when we asked when and where, he said, "Down by Betty's, when I was out with Cea and Louie"; and so it came out that she had taken him into the village, met this man, brought him into the grounds by the little gate, and tried to bribe Mite to say nothing about it. Cea told us all about it,--the little girl who lives with Miss Morton. Of course we could never let him go out with her again, and you would hardly believe what an amount of falsehoods she managed to tell Eden and me about it.' 'Ah, if you had lived at Westhaven you would have found out that to be so particular is the way to make those girls fib,' said Mrs. Morton. 'I hope not. I think we have a very good girl now, trained up in an orphanage.' 'Oh, those orphanage girls are the worst of all. I've had enough of them. They break everything to pieces, and they run after the lads worst of all, because they have never seen one before!' To which Mary answered by a quiet 'I hope it may not turn out so.' There were more agitating questions to be brought forward. Herbert had behaved very fairly well ever since the escapade of the pied rook; the lad kept his promise as to betting faithfully in his uncle's absence, and though it had not been renewed, he had learnt enough good sense to keep out of mischief.