a Ward, like satellites, a little way from her.

'Here is a coign of vantage,' said Ethel, seating herself on a step a
little way up the staircase. 'How those people have taken possession
of that child all day!'

'I fancy Leonard is come to reclaim her,' said Aubrey, 'don't you see
him trying to work through and get at her! and Miss Ward told me she
was going home early, to put the children to bed. Ha! what's the row?
There's Leonard flaring up in a regular rage! Only look at his
eyes--and Henry just like Gertrude's Java sparrow in a taking--'

'It must not be,' cried Ethel, starting up to attempt she knew not
what, as she heard Leonard's words, 'Say it was a mistake, Henry! You
cannot be so base as to persist!'

There it became evident that Ethel and Aubrey were seen over the
balusters; Leonard's colour deepened, but his eye did not flinch;
though Henry quailed and backed, and the widow gave a disconcerted
laugh; then Leonard pounced on his little sister and carried her off to
the cloak-room. 'What treason could it have been?' muttered Aubrey;
'we shall get it all from Ward;' but when Leonard re-appeared it was
with his sister cloaked and bonneted on his arm, each leading a little
one; he took them to the entrance and was seen no more.

Nor was the true history of that explosion ever revealed in the May
family, though it had grave consequences at Bankside.

Rumour had long declared at Stoneborough that the member's little
daughter was carefully secluded on account of some deformity, and Mrs.
Pugh had been one of many ladies who had hoped to satisfy their
curiosity on this head upon the present occasion. She had asked Henry
Ward whether it were so, and he had replied with pique that he had no
means of judging, he had never been called in at the Grange. By way of
salve to his feelings, the sympathizing lady had suggested that the
preference for London advice might be from the desire of secrecy, and
improbable as he knew this to be, his vanity had forbidden him to argue
against it. When no little Miss Rivers appeared, the notion of her
affliction gained ground, and Leonard, whose gray back was
undistinguishable from other gray backs, heard Mrs. Pugh citing his
brother as an authority for the misfortune which Mr. and Mrs. Rivers so
carefully concealed as to employ no surgeon from their own
neighbourhood.

Falsehood, slander, cruelty, ingratitude, breach of hospitality, were
the imputations that fired the hot