At the other end of the room was spread a very handsome new Turkey carpet; a piano stood there, and a fine pair of globes; the walls were hung with maps, but also with some of the strangest pictures possible; figures chiefly, with scrolls proceeding from their mouths, on which sentences were written.  A remarkable chair, very rude and clumsy, but carved all over with letters, flowers, birds, and other devices, attracted Emily’s attention.

“What is that?  Why, don’t you see that it’s a throne?  Father’s throne when he comes to Parliament to make a speech, or anything of that sort there.  Johnnie made it, but we all carved our initials on it.”

Emily inspected the chair, less to remark on the goodness of the carving than to express her approval of its spirit.  Johnnie’s flowers were indeed wooden, but his birds and insects, though flat and rough, were all intended to be alive.  He had too much directness, and also real vitality, to carve poor dead birds hanging by the legs with torn and ruffled feathers, and showing pathetically their quenched and faded eyes; he wanted his birds to peck and his beetles to be creeping.  Luckily for himself, he saw no beauty in death and misery, still less could think them ornamental.

Emily praised his wooden work, and the girls, with a sort of shy delight, questioned her:  “Was it really true, then, that Miss Fairbairn was gone, and was not coming back to England for weeks and weeks?” “Yes, really true; why had they made themselves so miserable about nothing?” “Ah, you were so kind; but, dear Mrs. Walker, you know very well how horrid it would have been to have a step-mother.”

Emily sat down and looked about her.  A very large slate, swung on a stand like a looking-glass, stood on the edge of the carpet.  On it were written these words:  “I cry, ‘Jam satis,’” John’s writing evidently, and of great size.  She had no time, however, to learn what it meant, for, with a shout like a war-whoop, Johnnie’s voice was heard below, and presently, as it were, driving his little brothers and sisters before him, Johnnie himself came blundering up-stairs at full speed with Crayshaw on his back.  “Bolt it, bolt the door,” panted Crayshaw; and down darted one of the girls to obey.  “And you kids sit down on the floor every one of you, that you mayn’t be theen below, and don’t make a thound,” said Johnnie, depositing Crayshaw on a couch, while Barbara began to fan him.  “They’re coming up the lane,” were Johnnie’s first words, when the whole family was seated on the floor like players at hunt the slipper.  “You won’t tell, Mrs. Walker?”

“Not tell what, to whom?” asked Emily.

“Why that fellow, Cray’s brother, wrote to Mr. Brandon that he was coming, and should take him away.  It’s a shame.”

“It’s a shame,” repeated Crayshaw, panting.  “I wish the Continent had never been invented.”

“Hold your tongue; if you make yourself pant they’ll hear you.  Hang being done good to!  Why, you’ve been perfectly well till this day, for the last six months——­”