p the bits of grass, and was near crying when
he said she was dead and gone, and then he didn't care for nothing.'

'But who taught him about Cayenne?' asked Alfred.

'Oh, that was the Union School. All the children went to school, and
they had a terrible sharp master, who used to cut them over the head
quite cruel, and was sent away at last for being such a savage; but Paul
being always there, and having nothing else to do, you see, got on ever
so far, and can work sums in his head downright wonderful. There came an
inspector once who praised him up, and said he'd recommend him to a place
where he'd be taught to be a school-master, if any one would pay the
cost; but the guardians wouldn't hear of it at no price, and were quite
spiteful to find he was a good scholar, for fear, I suppose, that he'd
know more than they.'

'Hush, hush, Harold,' said his mother; 'wait till you have to pay the
rates before you run out against the guardians.'

'What do you mean, Mother?'

'Why, don't you see, the guardians have their duties to those who pay the
rates, as well as those that have parish pay. What they have to do, is
to mind that nobody starves, or the like; and their means comes out of
the rates, out of my pocket, and the like of me, as well as my Lady's and
all the rich. Well, whatever they might like to do, it would not be
serving us fairly to take more than was a bare necessity from us, to send
your Master Paul and the like of him to a fine school. 'Tis for them to
be just, and other folk to be generous with what's their own.'

'Mother talks as if she was a guardian herself!' said Alfred in his funny
way.

'Ah, the collector's going his rounds,' responded Harold; and Mrs. King
laughed good-humouredly, always glad to see her sick boy able to enjoy
himself; but she sighed, saying, 'Ay, and ill can I spare it, though
thanks be to God that I've been as yet of them that pay, and not of them
that receive.'

'Go on the parish! Mother, what are you thinking of?' cried both sons
indignantly.

Poor Mrs. King was thinking of the long winter, and the heavy doctor's
bill, and feeling that, after all, suffering and humbling might not be so
very far off; but she was too cheerful and full of trust to dwell on the
thought, so she smiled and said, 'I only said I was thankful, boys, for
the mercy that has kept us up. Go on now, Harold; what about the boy?'

'Why, I don't know that he'd have gone if they had paid his expenses