“He would take me for one of the hobgoblins that beset Master Christian.”

“Nay,” said Mrs. Woodford, “he would say you were Christian floundering in the Slough of Despond, and deeming yourself one of its efts or tadpoles.”

He made no answer, but on the whole behaved so well that the next day Mrs. Woodford ventured to bring her little daughter in after having extracted a promise that there should be no tricks nor teasing, a pledge honourably kept.

Anne did not like the prospect of the interview.  “Oh, ma’am, don’t leave me alone with him!” she said.  “Do you know what he did to Mistress Martha Browning, his own cousin, you know, who lives at Emsworth with her aunt?  He put a horsehair slily round her glass of wine, and tipped it over her best gray taffeta, and her aunt whipped her for the stain.  She never would say it was his doing, and 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.