Constantia burst into tears, and declared Eustace talked so shockingly she could not bear it. "My pretty love," said he, "I did not mean to frighten you. No, I intend, instead of being killed myself, to tear down the rebel standards, and send them to you. What would you do with them?" Constantine paused a moment--"Would they," said she, "make a tent for my dear father to sit and read in? It goes to my heart to see him out of doors this stormy weather, wandering about and looking at his burnt library." "Could I not put it a little in repair while I stay?" inquired Eustace. "I am a very good mason, and a tolerable carpenter. I built a shed last year for the old poney. Isabel, you can glaze the windows, and white-wash. I think, between us, we might put it into comfortable order." Mrs. Mellicent, a little shocked at her niece's avowing her expertness in these handicraft employments, apprehended that her lamented sister had neglected her daughter's education through her solicitous attention to more important duties. She began therefore to question her about her accomplishments--"Can you work tent-stitch neat, my love?" was her first inquiry. "No!"--"Bless me, had you leather hangings to your best apartments?" Isabel was ignorant what hangings meant. Mrs. Mellicent proceeded to examine her skill in confectionery, and found with astonishment it was a science of which she did not know the name. "Can you paint chimney-boards, or cut paper, or work samplers?" "Dear aunt," said Isabel, "I am a brown bird of the mountains, as my mother called me. She taught me to sing, because she said it made work go on more merrily, but the longest day was short enough for what I had to do; I was laundress, and sempstress, and cook, and gardener; and if Cicely went to look for the sheep, I had to milk and bake, and at night I mended my father's fishing-nets, while I was learning Latin with Eustace. Yet I got through all very well, till my mother fell sick, and then I nursed and dressed her, as she lay helpless on the pallet. But if I live with you, I will learn all your employments, for I am never happy when I am idle, and my only wish is to be useful." "There is sterling worth in this rustic hoyden," thought Mrs. Mellicent, who, in contriving some occupation for so active a mind, recollected that Mrs. Beaumont's dressing-plate had not been cleaned lately, and undertook to make Isabel expert in furbishing the delicate filigree. She called on Constantia to give up the key, it being considered as her property, who blushed, hesitated, begged not to be questioned on the subject, and at last owned it was gone.