"Good-bye, mademoiselle!" cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar's side, after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls' eternal friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time--so Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where. As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea--she and Mr. Barlow alone--she making the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs. Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him. "No good, Miss Inna; that boy'll go to the dogs if somebody don't take him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him," said the housekeeper. "I!" cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy like Oscar! "But hark! that's the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere," said Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at the back gates. Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company. "Oh my!" said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. "I wish Master Oscar was at home. I'm thinking he's a finger in the pie." Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against the darkening sky. "What's alight?" inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by. "Poor Jackson's little farm; they say 'tis going like tinder, and he's half crazed," came back to them as the man ran on. "Oh dear! that boy, what he'll have to answer for!" cried the housekeeper. "But we're not sure 'tis his work," said sensible Inna. "No, dear; but there's seldom any mischief going that he don't help in the brewing of." Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting heavenwards. CHAPTER IV. OSCAR'S BURNT ARM--BLACK HOLE. "You see, dearie," went on the housekeeper, "he's playing truant these two days, and I don't like to bother the doctor, and get him into trouble. I hide what I can, in pity for his friendlessness." "Hasn't he anybody but Uncle Jonathan?" inquired Inna. "No, dearie; father and mother both dead, leaving him not a penny. 'Twould have been a sad life but for master, as I tell him; but I think that sets him more against the right than ever." "Suppose you weren't to tell him, but ask him to do his studies, and--and right things, for love of duty and love of pleasing you?" suggested Inna. "That's where it is. I think if he had a sister--now, if you were to get him to love you, you'd be able to do anything with him. Love for anybody is a mighty power, though 'tis said to be like a silk thread--something not seen, but felt--you see, 'tis stronger than it seems."