ou, miss."

"Walk on, my dears," Mrs. Ellison said. "I will overtake you, in a
minute or two.

"This will not do, Mr. White," she said, when she was alone with
the master. "I have told you before that I did not approve of your
thrashing so much, and now it is proved that you punish without any
sufficient cause, and upon suspicion only. I shall report the case
at once to the squire and, unless I am greatly mistaken, you will
have to look out for another place."

"I am very sorry, Mrs. Ellison, indeed I am; and it is not often I
use the cane, now. If it had been anyone else, I might have
believed him; but Reuben Whitney is always in mischief."

"No wonder he is in mischief," the lady said severely, "if he is
punished, without a hearing, for all the misdeeds of others. Well,
I shall leave the matter in the squire's hands; but I am sure he
will no more approve than I do of the children being ill treated."

Reuben Whitney was the son of a miller, near Tipping. John Whitney
had been considered a well-to-do man, but he had speculated in corn
and had got into difficulties; and his body was, one day, found
floating in the mill dam. No one knew whether it was the result of
intention or accident, but the jury of his neighbours who sat upon
the inquest gave him the benefit of the doubt, and brought in a
verdict of "accidental death." He was but tenant of the mill and,
when all the creditors were satisfied, there were only a few pounds
remaining for the widow.

With these she opened a little shop in Tipping, with a
miscellaneous collection of tinware and cheap ironmongery; cottons,
tapes, and small articles of haberdashery; with toys, sweets, and
cakes for the children. The profits were small, but the squire, who
had known her husband, charged but a nominal rent for the cottage;
and this was more than paid by the fruit trees in the garden, which
also supplied her with potatoes and vegetables, so that she managed
to support her boy and herself in tolerable comfort.

She herself had been the daughter of a tradesman in Lewes, and many
wondered that she did not return to her father, upon her husband's
death. But her home had not been a comfortable one, before her
marriage; for her father had taken a second wife, and she did not
get on well with her stepmother. She thought, therefore, that
anything would be better than returning with her boy to a home
where, to the mistress at least, she would be most unwelcome.

She had, as a