ctacles, and placidly
inquired what she wanted. He will be an old friend to some readers: for
he was John Avery of Bradmond.

"Master, an't like you, have you seen Mrs Clare of late?"

"How late, Barbara?"

"Marry, not the fourth part of an hour gone, I left the child in the
nursery a-playing with her puppet, when I went down to let in Hal
Dockett, and carry him to see what ailed the black cow; and now I be
back, no sign of the child is any whither. I have been in every
chamber, and looked in the nursery thrice."

"Where should she be?" quietly demanded Mr Avery.

"Marry, where but in the nursery, without you had fetched her away."

"And where should she not be?"

"Why, any other whither but here and there,--more specially in the
garden."

"Nay, then, reach me my staff, Barbara, and we will go look in the
garden. If that be whither our little maid should specially not be,
'tis there we be bound to find her."

"Marry, but that is sooth!" said Barbara heartily, bringing the
walking-stick. "Never in all my life saw I child that gat into more
mischievousness, nor gave more trouble to them that had her in charge."

"Thy memory is something short, Barbara," returned her master with a dry
smile, "'Tis but little over a score of years sithence thou wert used to
say the very same of her father."

"Eh, Master!--nay, not Master Walter!" said Barbara, deprecatingly.

"Well, trouble and sorrow be ever biggest in the present tense,"
answered he. "And I wot well thou hast a great charge on thine hands."

"I reckon you should think so, an' you had the doing of it," said
Barbara complacently. "Up ere the lark, and abed after the nightingale!
What with scouring, and washing, and dressing meat, and making the
beds, and baking, and brewing, and sewing, and mending, and Mrs Clare
and you atop of it all--"

"Nay, prithee, let me drop off the top, so thou lame me not, for the
rest is enough for one woman's shoulders."

"In good sooth, Master, but you lack as much looking after, in your way,
as Mrs Clare doth; for verily your head is so lapped in your books and
your learning, that I do think, an' I tended you not, you should break
your fast toward eventide, and bethink you but to-morrow at noon that
you had not supped overnight."

"Very like, Barbara,--very like!" answered the old man with a meek
smile. "Thou hast been a right true maid unto me and mine,--as saith
Solomon of the wise woman, thou hast done us good and