Harriet made no response. Outwardly she was concerned with some directions to Nelly, waiting to take the child to bed, but inwardly she was wondering if Austen ever could have cared for this Charlotte Ransome. He sat long after Harriet had gone. Then, rising abruptly, he went out the front door and walked to the corner of the house. It was dark in the coachman's room above the stable, and the master could go to bed secure that his oil was not being wasted. That was all, yet he did not go in. The night was perfect, full of moonlight and the scent of earth and growing things. It was so still the houses along the street seemed asleep. Almost furtively, the gaze of Austen lifted to the cottage, dark and silent across the way. He had been the one who would not forgive; the other had been only an impetuous girl. He stood there long. Perhaps his face was colder, his lips pressed to a thinner line; perhaps it was the moonlight. Then he turned and went into the house. CHAPTER SIX Alexina came to Harriet with information. "Emily goes to school to her aunt, and King William goes there, too." "Do they?" returned Harriet. Her interest was good-humoured rather than ardent. "I'd like to go, too," said her niece. "Oh," from Harriet, understanding at last; "but isn't school about over?" "There's two weeks more." "If it will make you happy, why not, if the teacher does not object?" So Alexina went with Emily to school. King William was there, but he hardly noticed her, seeming gloomy and given to taking his slate off into corners. "He don't want to come," explained Emily; "he's the only boy." "Then what does he come for?" queried the practical Alexina. "His mother won't let him go to a public school." There was more to be learned about William. He fought the boys who went to the public school, because they jeered him in his ignominy. Alexina saw it happening up the alley but, strangely enough, when William appeared at school, he seemed cheered up, though something of a wreck. Out of school, Alexina often went over to Emily's house to play. There were no servants there, but her mamma beat up things in crocks, and her great-aunty, a brisk little old woman with sharp eyes, made yeast cakes and dried them out under the arbour and milked the cow, too, and Emily's little brother, Oliver, carried milk to the neighbours. Once in the spotless, shining kitchen, Alexina was allowed to wield a mop in a dish-pan and, still again, to stir at batter in a bowl. In the room which would have been the parlour in another house, Emily's grandfather Pryor sat at a table with books around him, and wrote on big sheets of paper in close writing. He was a stern old man and his hair stood out fine and white about his head. Once, as he passed across the front porch, he looked at Emily, then stopped, pointing to the chain about her neck. It was Alexina's little gold necklace which Emily had begged to wear. "Take it off," he said.