“Does it hurt?” asked Hugh, also full of ruth.

“Be ashamed of yourself,” whispered Miss Christie, “to work on the dear children’s feelings so.  No, my sweet mannie, it doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“I’m very much to be pitied,” proceeded Valentine.  “That isn’t all”—­he sighed again—­“I was born with a bad French accent, and without a single tooth in my head, or, out of it, while such was my weakness, that it took two strong men, both masters of arts, to drag me through the rudiments of the Latin grammar.”

Anastasia’s eyes filled with tears.  It seemed so sad; and the tender little heart had not gone yet into the question of seeming.

“They teached you the Latin grammar did they?” said Bertram, who had also been listening, and was relieved to hear of something in this list of miseries that he could understand; “that’s what Miss Crampton teaches me.  I don’t like it, and you didn’t either, then.  I’m six and three quarters; how old were you?”

Before Valentine had answered, John and Brandon, finding themselves before the party, had stopped and turned.  Brandon was surprised to see how earnestly the two elder children, while he talked, had been looking at him, and then at their father and Valentine.  At last, when this pause occurred, and the two groups met, Janie said—­

“I am sure papa is a great deal prettier than Mr. Brandon, and Cousin Val looks quite ugly beside him.”

“Yes, Janie,” said Bertram, with an air of high satisfaction, “papa’s much more beautiful than either of the others.  I shall ask Miss Crampton when I go in if she doesn’t think so.  You would like to know what she thinks, wouldn’t you, father?”

John had opened his mouth to say no, when his better sense coming to his aid, he forbore to speak.  For this lady taught his children to perfection, but his friends always would insist that she wanted to teach him too—­something that he wouldn’t learn.

Aunt Christie, his constant friend and champion, presently spoke for him.

“No, children,” she said, as soon as she had composed her voice to a due gravity, “it’s natural ye should admire your father, good children generally do, but, now, if I were you, I would never tell anybody at all, not even Miss Crampton—­do ye hear me, all of you?  I would never tell anybody your opinion of him.  If ye do, they will certainly think ye highly conceited, for ye know quite well that people say you four little ones are just as exactly like him as ye can be.”

The children were evidently impressed.

“In fact,” said Valentine, “now I take a good look at him, I should say that you are even more like him than he is himself—­but—­I may be mistaken.”

“I won’t say it then,” said Bertram, now quite convinced.

“And I won’t, and I won’t,” added others, as they ran forward to open a grate.

“Cheer up, John,” said St. George, “let us not see so much beauty and virtue cast down.  There’s Miss Crampton looking out of the school-room window.”