To my own infinite annoyance I blushed as I answered, "I was going to sit with Charlie a bit, unless you have any objection." "Not at all. I only asked for information. I have no wish to interfere with any respectable friends you may be disposed to give your confidence to. But I should like it to be understood that either your mother or I must have some knowledge of your movements." "Mother knew quite well I was going!" I exclaimed "Why, I've got a parcel to take to Mrs. Wood from her." "Very good. There's no occasion to display temper. Shut the door after you." I shut it very gently. (If three years at Crayshaw's had taught me nothing else, it had taught me much self-control.) Then I got away to the first hiding-place I could find, and buried my head upon my arms. Would not a beating from Snuffy have been less hard to bear? Surely sore bones from those one despises are not so painful as a sore heart from those one loves. Our household affections were too sound at the core for the mere fact of displeasing my father not to weigh heavily on my soul. But I could not help defending myself in my own mind against what I knew to be injustice. Jem "frank with his father"? Well he might be, when our father's partiality met him half-way at every turn. _That_ was no fancy of mine. I had the clearest of childish remembrances of an occasion when I wanted to do something which our farming-man thought my father would not approve, and how when I urged the fact that Jem had already done it with impunity, he shook his head wiseacrely, and said, "Aye, aye, Master Jack. But ye know they say some folks may steal a horse, when other folks mayn't look over the hedge." The vagueness of "some folks" and "other folks" had left the proverb dark to my understanding when I heard it, but I remembered it till I understood it.