"Ah, May! I see how it is," said Jacob, with a sigh. "You will be quicker with your books than I ever shall be, and if the kind ladies at Downside wish to teach you, it's not for me to say them nay; but I would that I had more learning for your sake, and I shall be jealous of them, that I shall, when I find that you can read off out of any book you have got as smoothly as you do the verses you have learned by rote. Oh, you will be laughing at me then." "No, no, Jacob! I will never laugh at you. You taught me all I know about reading, and I shall never forget that, even if I learn to read ever so well." Next morning, when Adam came home from fishing, the dame told him the interest Miss Mary Pemberton seemed to take in Maiden May, and of her expectation that the Miss Pembertons would wish to have the little girl up to instruct her better than they could at home. Adam agreed that it would not be right to prevent their charge enjoying the benefit which such instruction would undoubtedly be to her. "But they must not rob us of her altogether, dame. I could not bear to part with the little maiden, and what is more I won't, unless her own kindred come to claim her, and then it would go sore against the grain to give her up. But right is right, and we could not stand out against that." "If the Miss Pembertons wish to take the little girl into their house and make a little lady of her it would not be right, I fear, Adam, to say `No' to them." "She is a little lady already," answered Adam, sturdily. "They could not make her more so than she is already." "But I am afraid the way we live, and speak too, Adam, is not like that of gentlefolks; and though our Maiden May is a little lady, and better than many little ladies I have known in all her ways, she will become in time too much like one of us to please those to whom she belongs, I am afraid," observed the dame, who had from her experience as a domestic servant in Mr Castleton's family, a clearer perception of the difference between the habits of her own class and those of the upper orders of society than her husband. Still Adam was not to be convinced. "We are bringing her up as a Christian child should be brought up, to be good and obedient," he observed, in a determined tone, "and that's more than many among the gentry are. You know, Betsy, you wouldn't like her to be like that Miss Castleton you told me off." "No more I should," answered the dame; "But though the Pembertons are of her kindred, they are truly Christian ladies, and Maiden May could only learn good from them." As is often the case in a matrimonial discussion, the wife had the best of the argument, but they were still uncertain whether the Miss Pembertons would even make the offer which the dame had suggested as possible. She, at all events, had promised to take Maiden May up to them, and Adam could not prohibit her doing so. CHAPTER THIRTEEN. MAY AN APT SCHOLAR.