ne anything wrong, and I won't have him locked up! Go away! If
anything is to be done to my boys, I'll do it myself: they haven't got
any one but me. Oh, I wish the Major would come!"

"Fanny, how can you be so foolish?--as if I would hurt your boys!"

"But you won't believe Conrade--my Conrade, that never told a falsehood
in his life!" cried the mother, with a flush in her cheeks and a bright
glance in her soft eyes. "You want me to punish him for what he hasn't
done."

"How much alike mothers are in all classes of life," thought Rachel, and
much in the way in which she would have brought Zack's mother to reason
by threats of expulsion from the shoe-club, she observed, "Well Fanny,
one thing is clear, while you are so weak as to let that boy go on in
his deceit, unrepentant and unpunished, I can have no more to do with
his education."

"Indeed," softly said Fanny, "I am afraid so, Rachel. You have taken a
great deal of trouble, but Conrade declares he will never say a lesson
to you again, and I don't quite see how to make him after this."

"Oh, very well; then there's an end of it. I am sorry for you, Fanny."

And away walked Rachel, and as she went towards the gate two artificial
jets d'eau, making a considerable curve in the air, alighted, the one
just before her, the other, better aimed, in the back of her neck. She
had too much dignity to charge back upon the offenders, but she
went home full of the story of Fanny's lamentable weakness, and
prognostications of the misery she was entailing on herself. Her
mother and sister were both much concerned, and thought Fanny extremely
foolish; Mrs. Curtis consoling herself with the hope that the boys would
be cured and tamed at school, and begging that they might never be
let loose in the park again. Rachel could not dwell much longer on the
matter, for she had to ride to Upper Avon Park to hold council on the
books to be ordered for the book-club; for if she did got go herself,
whatever she wanted especially was always set aside as too something or
other for the rest of the subscribers.

Mrs. Curtis was tired, and stayed at home; and Grace spent the afternoon
in investigations about the harrying of the thrushes, but, alas! without
coming a bit nearer the truth. Nothing was seen or heard of Lady Temple
till, at half-past nine, one of the midges, or diminutive flies used at
Avonmonth, came to the door, and Fanny came into the drawing-room--wan,
tearful, agitated.

"D