w that we were only in play? Did you never see two boys playing
before?"

"Not in that way," replied Henry.

"That is because you have no brother," answered James. "It is a sad
thing for a boy not to have a brother."

They all then left the barn, and William went to wash his nose at the
pump.

Whilst he was doing this, James turned over an empty trough which lay
in the shade of one of the buildings in the fold-yard, and he and Henry
sat down upon it; William soon came down to them. He had washed away
the blood, and he looked so sulky, that anyone might have seen that he
would have opened out the quarrel again with James had not Henry
Fairchild been present; for, though he did not care for the little boy,
yet he did not wish that he should give him a bad name to his father.

Henry Fairchild was learning the best lesson he had ever had in his
life amongst the unruly children of Mr. Burke; but this lesson was not
to be learned only by his ears and eyes; it would not have been enough
for him to have seen Tom soused in the mire, or William with his bloody
nose; his very bones were to suffer in the acquirement of it, and he
was to get such a fright as he had never known before.

But before the second part of his adventures that morning is related,
it will be as well to say, in this place, that Mr. Fairchild was taken
first by Mr. Burke to the poor widow's cottage, where he found her
almost crippled with rheumatism. She had parted with much of her
furniture and clothes to feed the poor children, but was gentle and did
not complain.

From the cottage Mr. Burke drove Mr. Fairchild to the park, and there
Mr. Fairchild had an opportunity of speaking of the poor grandmother
and the little children to Mr. and Mrs. Darwell.

Mr. Darwell said that if the cottage required repair, Mr. Burke must
look after it, and then speak to him, as the affair was not his, as he
was only Sir Charles Noble's tenant.

Mrs. Darwell seemed to Mr. Fairchild to be a very fine lady, and one
who did not trouble herself about the concerns of the poor; but there
was one in the room who heard every word which Mr. Fairchild said, and
heard it attentively.

This was little Miss Darwell. She was seated on a sofa, with a piece of
delicate work in her hand; she was dressed in the most costly manner,
and she looked as fair and almost as quiet as a waxen doll.

Who can guess what was going on in her mind whilst she was listening to
the history of the poo