and you have been accustomed to do."

"Please, ma'am, I am a very poor scholar," answered Jacob; "but I do my
best, and I shall be main glad if you will help me."

Hand-in-hand May and Jacob set off to return home.

That evening Jacob might have been seen with the Bible before him, and
May seated by his side, while he tried to help her to read. As the lamp
fell on their countenances, the contrast between the fair,
delicate-looking child and the big, strongly-built fisher-boy, with his
well-bronzed, broad and honest face, would not have failed to be
remarked by a stranger entering the room.

Jacob spelt out the words one by one, pronouncing them with his broad
accent as he gained their meaning, while May followed him, imitating
exactly the intonation of his voice. Sometimes she not only caught him
up, but got ahead, reading on several words by herself, greatly to her
delight.

"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