dair; but she stepped into the lane with
the boy, and there she saw Isabella, seated, in great trouble, upon a
stone. The affair was now explained. Isabella was taken to Elizabeth,
with the assurance that no one would be angry with her; but that she
must not mention the affair to any person.

Mrs. Adair now proposed going with the boy to his father's. There was an
expression of honest warmth in his countenance, which, in a moment,
changed her own manner; and, as they were going down the lane, she asked
how far they were from his father's house.

"'Tis but a cottage, madam. Grandmother says we were once well off in
the world; but things will go wrong some how or another: but I'll make
good what I wrote to-day."

"And what was it, my good boy?"

"Only to work while I am able, madam; and then when I am old, I will
rest from my labour. But there is our cottage. I wish you could have
seen my own mother, for she was a nice woman. Don't you see that clump
of trees, and a barn with red tiles, and a little boy wheeling a barrow?
That's my own brother, ma'am, and there's my father at the stile,
looking about him."

As they drew nearer the cottage, they saw the man and his son step over
the stile into the field, followed by a female.

"Well, I declare," said the boy, "there is mother with her bonnet! I
wonder what they are all after! And there's grandmother come to the
door!"

He now called out: "Grandmother! here is the lady from the great school,
coming to look for Miss."

"Then I fear, madam, you are coming to look for what you will not find.
Whilst my daughter went down to the pond, to the children, she slipped
off. My son thinks that the young lady is gone to London in one of the
stage-coaches. If so, Tom, I fear thou wilt be well paid."

"Ah, grandmother, that's nothing new! If my own mother was living, it
would not be so."

"With your permission," said Mrs. Adair, as she entered the cottage, "I
will take a seat till your daughter returns."

"Certainly, madam; here is a comfortable seat. But we are not the
neatest people in the world," said the old woman, as she took up a
child's frock from the floor. Mrs. Adair looked round, and thought she
had never been in any place that had so little the appearance of
comfort.

The boy looked at her, and seemed to read her countenance.

"It was not always so, madam: I remember we were once happy folks; but
it was a sad day for Dick and I, when father's wife took place of