nd yet he
goes on teasing her the same as ever, though his brother Oliver
found it out, and thrashed him for it: you know Oliver is to marry
Mistress Martha."

"My dear child, where did you hear all this?" asked Mrs. Woodford,
rather overwhelmed with this flood of gossip from her usually quiet
daughter.

"Lucy told me, mamma. She heard it from Sedley, who says he does
not wonder at any one serving out Martha Browning, for she is as
ugly as sin."

"Hush, hush, Anne! Such sayings do not become a young maid. This
poor lad has scarce known kindness. Every one's hand has been
against him, and so his hand has been against every one. I want my
little daughter to be brave enough not to pain and anger him by
shrinking from him as if he were not like other people. We must
teach him to be happy before we can teach him to be good."

"Madam, I will try," said the child, with a great gulp; "only if you
would be pleased not to leave me alone with him the first time!"

This Mrs. Woodford promised. At first the boy lay and looked at
Anne as if she were a rare curiosity brought for his examination,
and it took all her resolution, even to a heroic exertion of
childish fortitude, not to flinch under the gaze of those queer
eyes. However, Mrs. Woodford diverted the glances by producing a
box of spillekins, and in the interest of the game the children
became better acquainted.

Over their next day's game Mrs. Woodford left them, and Anne became
at ease since Peregrine never attempted any tricks. She taught him
to play at draughts, the elders thinking it expedient not to doubt
whether such vanities were permissible at Oakwood.

Soon there was such merriment between them that the kind Doctor said
it did his heart good to hear the boy's hearty natural laugh in lieu
of the "Ho! ho! ho!" of malice or derision.

They were odd conversations that used to take place between that boy
and girl. The King's offer of a pageship had oozed out in the
Oakshott family, and Peregrine greatly resented the refusal, which
he naturally attributed to his father's Whiggery and spite at all
things agreeable, and he was fond of discussing his wrongs and
longings with Anne, who, from her childish point of view, thought
the walls of Portchester and the sluggish creek a very bad exchange
for her enjoyments at Greenwich, where she had lived during her
father's years of broken health, after he had been disabled at
Southwold by a wound which had preve