“Ah, they are all good girls,” replied Molly. “Hannah is no better than the rest, though we have a bit spoiled her, being the youngest, and mother dead. There’s Martin at Scroggin’s Mill wants Lydia, but Lyddy is too sensible to be listening to the likes of him. ‘No, no, Lyddy,’ I say, ‘whatever you do, never marry a man who makes an idol of his money; he will love his guineas more than his wife; better be doing work all your life and die single as I shall, than be mistress of Scroggin’s Mill if Martin is to be master.’” “You give your sisters very good advice,” I returned. “I have not much else to give them,” was the abrupt answer; “but they are good girls, and know I mean well. The boys are rather a handful, especially Dan, who is always bird-catching on Sunday, and won’t see the sin of it. But there, one must take boys as one finds them, and not put ourselves in the place of Providence. They want a deal of patience, and patience is not in my nature, and if Dan comes to a bad end with his lame leg and bird-traps, nobody must blame me, who has always a scolding ready for him if he will take it.” I saw Dan presently under rather disadvantageous circumstances, for as we came out of the dairy who should come riding under the great pear tree but Mr. Hawtry, with a red-headed boy sitting behind him, with a pair of dirty hands grasping his coat. I never saw such a freckled face nor such red hair in my life, and he looked at Molly so roguishly from under Mr. Hawtry’s shoulder, there was no mistaking that this was the family scapegrace. “Good-evening, Molly,” called out Mr. Hawtry, cheerfully; “I am carrying home Dan in pillion fashion, because the rogue has dropped his crutch into the mill dam, and he could not manage with the other. I found him in difficulties, sitting under the mill hedge, very tired and hungry. You will let him have his tea, Molly, as it was accident and not mischief. I forgot to say the other crutch is lying in the road broken; it broke itself—didn’t it, Dan?—in its attempt to get him home?” and here Mr. Hawtry’s eyes twinkled, but he could not be induced, neither could Dan, to explain the mystery of the broken crutch. “You will come to a bad end, Dan,” remarked Molly, severely, as she lifted down the boy, not over gently; but she forbore to shake him, as he was wholly in her power—a piece of magnanimity on Molly’s part. Mr. Hawtry dismounted, perhaps to see that Dan had merciful treatment; but he need not have been afraid, Molly had too large a heart to be hard on a crippled boy, and one who was her special torment and pet. Molly could not have starved a dog, and certainly not red-headed Dan. He was soon established in his special chair, with a thick wedge of cold buttered cake in his hand. Scolding did not hurt as long as Molly saw to his comforts, and Dan looked as happy as a king in spite of his lost crutches.