hat you told me yourself was out of a prison.'

'Oh but, Mrs. Shepherd--'

'You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' interrupted Mrs. Shepherd; 'and I
wonder your mother allows it. But there's nothing like girls
now-a-days.'

Ellen thought John Farden grinned; and feeling as if nothing so shocking
could ever happen to her again, she flew back, she hardly knew how, to
her home, clapped the door after, and dropping into a chair as Harold had
done, burst into such a fit of crying, that she could not speak, and only
shook her head in answer to Harold's questions as to how Paul was gone.

'Oh, no one knew!' she choked out among her sobs; 'and Mrs. Shepherd--such
things!'

Harold stamped his foot, and Mrs. King tried to soothe her. In the
midst, she recollected that she could not bear her brothers to guess at
the worst part of the 'such things;' and recovering herself a moment, she
said, 'No, no, they've driven him off! He's gone, and--and, oh! Mother,
Mrs. Shepherd will have it he's a thief, and--and she says I said so.'

That was bad enough, and Ellen wept bitterly again; while her mother and
Harold both cried out with surprise.

'Yes--but--I did say I dare said he was out of a reformatory--and that
she should remember it! Now I've taken away his character, and he's a
poor lost boy!'

Oh, idle words! idle words!

CHAPTER IX--ROBBING THE MAIL

There was no helping it! People must have their letters whether Paul
Blackthorn were lost or not, and Harold was a servant of the public, and
must do his duty, so after some exhortations from his mother, he ruefully
rose up, hoping that he should not have to go to Ragglesford.

'Yes, you will,' said his mother, 'and maybe to wait. Here's a
registered letter, and I think there are two more with money in them.'

'To think,' sighed Harold, as he mounted his pony, 'of them little chaps
getting more money for nothing, than Paul did in a month by working the
skin off his bones!'

'Don't be discontented, Harold, on that score. Them little chaps will
work hard enough by-and-by: and the money they have now is to train them
in making a fit use of it then.'

Harold looked anxiously up and down the road for Paul, and asked Mr.
Cope's housekeeper whether he had been there to take leave. No; and
indeed Harold would have been a little vexed if he had wished good-bye
anywhere if not at home.

There was a fine white frost, and the rime hung thickly on every spray of
the