stare,
David at length turned on him.

"Weel, little Andrew," he said, speaking in that paternal fashion in
which one small boy loves to address another. "Weel, ma little lad,
yo'm coomin' along gradely." He leant back in his chair the better to
criticise his subject. But Andrew, like all the Moores, slow of speech,
preserved a stolid silence, sucking a chubby thumb, and regarding his
patron a thought cynically.

David resented the expression on the boy's countenance, and half rose to
his feet.

"Yo' put another face on yo', Andrew Moore," he cried threateningly, "or
I'll put it for yo'."

Maggie, however, interposed opportunely.

"Did yo' feyther beat yo' last night?" she inquired in a low voice; and
there was a shade of anxiety in the soft brown eyes.

"Nay," the boy answered; "he was a-goin' to, but he never did. Drunk,"
he added in explanation.

"What was he goin' to beat yo' for, David?" asked Mrs. Moore.

"What for? Why, for the fun o't--to see me squiggle," the boy replied,
and laughed bitterly.

"Yo' shouldna speak so o' your dad, David," reproved the other as
severely as was in her nature.

"Dad! a fine dad! I'd dad him an I'd the chance," the boy muttered
beneath his breath. Then, to turn the conversation:

"Us should be startin', Maggie," he said, and going to the door. "Bob!
Owd Bob, lad! Ar't coomin' along?" he called.

The gray dog came springing up like an antelope, and the three started
off for school together.

Mrs. Moore stood in the doorway, holding Andrew by the hand, and watched
the departing trio.

"'Tis a pretty pair, Master, surely," she said softly to her husband,
who came up at the moment.

"Ay, he'll be a fine lad if his fether'll let him," the tall man
answered.

"Tis a shame Mr. M'Adam should lead him such a life," the woman
continued indignantly. She laid a hand on her husband's arm, and looked
up at him coaxingly.

"Could yo' not say summat to un, Master, think 'ee? Happen he'd 'tend
to you," she pleaded. For Mrs. Moore imagined that there could be no one
but would gladly heed what James Moore, Master of Kenmuir, might say
to him. "He's not a bad un at bottom, I do believe," she continued. "He
never took on so till his missus died. Eh, but he was main fond o' her."

Her husband shook his head "Nay, mother," he said "'Twould nob' but
mak' it worse for t' lad. M'Adam'd listen to no one, let alone me." And,
indeed, he was right; for the tenant of the Grange made no s