Alice was first carefully fixed in her cradle, and then kneeling down at Billy’s side, and laying her arms across his lap, Mary told him of every thing which had happened, and finished by asking, “how long she must stay there.”

Had Billy’s purse been as large as his heart, that question would have been easily answered.  Now he could only shake his head in reply, while Mary next asked if he had seen Ella.

“I have not seen her,” returned he, “but I’ve heard that rainy as it was this morning, Mrs. Campbell’s maid was out selecting muslins and jaconets for her, and they say she is not to wear black, as Mrs. Campbell thinks her too young.”

Mary did not speak for some time, but her head dropped on Billy’s knee and she seemed to be intently thinking.  At last, brushing aside the hair which had fallen over her forehead, Billy said, “What are you thinking about?”

“I was wondering if Ella wouldn’t forget me and Allie now she is rich and going to be a lady.”

Billy had thought the same thing, and lifting the little girl in his lap, he replied, “If she does, I never will;”—­and then he told her again how, when he was older, and had money, he would take her from the poor-house and send her to school, and that she should some time be as much of a lady as Ella.

By this time Mrs. Grundy’s work in the kitchen was done.  Patsy had been shaken for stealing a ginger cake; the lame woman had been scolded because her floor had dried in streaks, which was nothing remarkable considering how muddy it was.  Uncle Peter had been driven from the pantry for asking for milk, and now the lady herself had come up to change her morning apparel and don the high-crowned cap with the sky-blue ribbons.  Greatly was she surprised at the sound of voices in the room adjoining, and while Mary was still in Billy’s lap the door opened, and Mrs. Grundy appeared, with her hands thrown up and the wide border of her morning cap, which also did night service for its fair owner, flying straight back.

“Mary Howard!” said she; “a man up in this hall where no male is ever permitted to come!  What does it mean?  I shall be ruined!”

“No danger, madam, I assure you,” said Billy.  “I came to bring Alice’s cradle, and did not suppose there was any thing improper in coming up here.”

“It’s nobody but Billy Bender,” said Mary, frightened at Mrs. Grundy’s wrathful looks.

“And who is Billy Bender?  A beau?  ’Pears to me you are beginning young, and getting on fast, too, a settin’ in his lap.  S’posin’ I should do so—­wouldn’t it be a town’s talk?”

Mary tried to get down, but Billy, greatly amused at the highly scandalized lady’s distress, held her tightly, and Mrs. Grundy, slamming the door together, declared “she’d tell Mr. Parker, and that’s the end on’t.”

But no Mr. Parker made his appearance, and as the sun was getting towards the west, Billy ere long started up, saying, he must go now, but would come again next week.  Mary followed him down stairs, and then returning to her room cried herself into so sound a sleep that Mrs. Grundy was obliged to scream to her at least a dozen times to come down and set the supper table, adding as a finale, that “she wondered if she thought she was a lady boarder or what.”