Madge inquired in a trembling voice as soon as
the door opened.

"Get better? Yes, I should hope so in every way," answered Captain
West, sitting down and taking the twins gently on his knees, while
Madge hung over the back of his chair. "It's a bad accident though,"
he continued. "A broken leg and some injury to the head. He only
regained consciousness just before I left Mrs. Howard's."

"Oh, what were they doing with him? I hope they won't lock him into
the cellar now he is ill!" cried Betty compassionately.

"My dear child! What are you thinking about? Do we usually lock
people in cellars when they are ill?" laughed her father. "No, he was
in a remarkably nice bedroom, with a hospital nurse and Dr. Brown in
attendance on him when I left."

Betty felt greatly relieved. It seemed impossible to believe that much
cruelty would take place in the presence of Dr. Brown, who always
ordered her black-currant tea when she had a cough, and told Nurse to
put as little mustard as possible in the poultices.

"But why should you expect that boy to be ill-treated at home?"
inquired Captain West. "From what I hear about him I should think it
is much more likely he has been spoilt!"

"Ah! it isn't his real home," explained Betty, "and that Mrs. Howard is
a terrible person."

She was going to add that the old lady had the reputation of being a
witch, but the accusation seemed too absurd to be urged in broad
daylight in the school-room. So she only mentioned a few of Lewis's
tales about Mrs. Howard's cruelty to him.

Captain West listened for a minute and then fairly burst out laughing.
"Do you really mean that you believed all that?" he said. "You
seriously thought boys were stolen, and shut up in dark cellars, and
all the rest of it?"

The children hung their heads, suddenly feeling rather ashamed of the
ease with which they had been imposed upon, for they could see that
their father did not believe a word of the horrors.

"But other people beside Lewis Brand have told us that Mrs. Howard is
very dreadful and mysterious," observed Madge, who did not at all like
finding herself quite in the wrong. "When Mrs. Bunn is weeding the
garden she sometimes tells us what people in the village say--"

"She would be better employed pulling up groundsel!" interrupted
Captain West. "But what does she tell you about starving boys in
cellars full of black-beetles?"

Madge was bound to admit that she had never heard this p