“It must have given papa a great deal of thinking,” she said. “Once me and Rodie were in the turret as--as he never comes now----” This was very bad grammar, but Elsie’s heart was full of other things. “We were reading _Quentin Durward_, and very, very taken up with all that was going on at Liege, if you mind.” Liége had no accent in Elsie’s mind or her pronunciation. “And then you came into the study, mother, and talked. And after he began again with his sermon. It was a long time ago, but I never forgot, for it was strange what he said. It was as if he was learning the parable off by heart. ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fourscore’--or ‘write fifty.’ He said it over and over, just those words--sometimes the one and sometimes the other. It was awfu’ funny. We both heard it; both me and Rodie, and wondered what he could be meaning. And we dared not move, for though he knew we were there, we did not like to disturb him. We thought he had maybe forgotten us. We were so stiff, we could scarcely move, and that was always what he said, ‘Take now thy bill, and sit down----’” Mrs. Buchanan had dropped her work and raised her head to listen; a puzzled look came over her face, then she shook her head, slightly, unable to solve the problem which she dimly felt to be put before her. She said, at last, with a change of countenance: “I came into the study and talked?--and you there? What was I talking about? do you mind that?” “Oh, nothing,” said Elsie. “Old Mr. Anderson; it was just before he died.” “And you were there, Rodie and you, when I came in to talk private things with your father! Is that the kind of conduct for children in a decent house?” Mrs. Buchanan had reddened again, and wrath, quite unusual, was in her tone. “Mamma, when it was raining, and we had a book to read, we were always there, and father knew, and he never said a word!” “You knew too, mother,” said Marion; “the two little things were always there.” “Little things!” cried Mrs. Buchanan, almost with a snort--Rodie’s heel, stretched out upon her hand, and now filled up with a strong and seemly web of darning in stout worsted, was quite as big as his father’s. And Elsie was taller than either of the two women by her side. “They were little things with muckle lugs,” she said, with a rather fierce little laugh; “if you think, Elsie, it was right to spy upon the private conversation of your father and mother, that is not my opinion. Do you think I would have spoken to him as I did if I had known you two were there?” “Mother, about old Mr. Anderson?” cried Marion, meditating; “there could be nothing so private about that.” She gave them both a look, curious and anxious; Marion took it with the utmost composure, perhaps did not perceive it at all. Elsie, with a wistful but ignorant countenance, looked at her mother, but did not wince. She had no recollection of what that conversation had been. “Oh, mamma,” she said, “we spying!” with big tears in her eyes.