"Does you want me to swarm up to the top of that tall tree, father? I can, you know: I isn't a bit frighted," said Ralph. Mr Durrant stood and smiled. "You mustn't go too far," he said, "I don't want you to fall and hurt yourself." "No," said Ralph, "that wouldn't be right, would it? Special 'cause there's no water underneath. If I was to run up this tree, and run along that bough that bends over so, and it cracked, same as willow bough cracked, I--" Then he stopped and turned very red. Durrant was standing very upright and apparently not listening. Ralph felt a choking sensation in his throat. How very nearly he had betrayed himself! "Was you listening, father?" he said, after a pause; and he came up and pulled the brown man by the sleeve. "To what, my boy?" "To a sort of nonsense I was talking." Instantly Mr Durrant's face grew very stern. "You were not talking nonsense, Ralph," he said. "You were telling something that happened: but I don't want to hear the rest. What I have heard doesn't matter, for a half story is no story all: but it is not exactly true to call what really happened nonsense, and I don't like those words from the lips of my little son. Now go up your tree; climb along any branch you like: I am below watching you." "Yes, yes," said the boy, the weight of the words he had inadvertently used slipping from his mind. "Father's below, waiting for me," he repeated. He climbed the tall elm tree, springing from branch to branch with the alertness of a little squirrel, and presently came down again, radiant and triumphant. "Pluckily done, Ralph!" said his father, and he took the boy's hand and continued to walk with him through the Forest. "Father," said Ralph, after a pause, "I have been telling Harriet that you must have it proved that she is both brave and noble." "That is right, my boy. Now let us talk of something else. There'll be a bit of a breeze to-night: we must run the `Sea-Gull' into Yarmouth Harbour. We must run in before long in order that we may be snug and in port before we have any dirty weather." If there was one girl who was not perfectly happy during this week of sunshine, it was Jane Bush. Poor Jane was completely under Harriet's influence. If Harriet was poor, Jane was a little poorer. Mrs Burton was one of those good Christian women who took girls, whose parents were poor, on special terms; both Harriet and Jane were girls of this sort. She had long ago made up her mind that those girls who could not afford to pay for a good education should nevertheless, if there was a vacancy at Abbeyfield, receive all the advantages of the best education she could offer.