“How was I to know she had a brother?” grumbled Mark under his breath.  “And what has he to do with the joke of her uncle’s marrying?”

“And dying?” said Hetty.  “But that’s just it, you see, we don’t know anything about it.”

“Children,” murmured Miss Davis, “what has happened to me?  Give me your hands, Mark, and help me to rise.”

They raised her up and laid her on the sofa.

“What was the matter?” repeated Miss Davis, seeing the tears flowing down Hetty’s cheeks.

“Oh! two nasty old people came to see you and frightened you,” said Mark, “and then they walked off, and Hetty and I found you on the floor.”

Hetty gave Mark a reproachful look, coloured deeply, and hung her head.  Mark cast a warning glance at her over Miss Davis’s shoulder.  He did not want to be discovered.

“Oh!  I remember,” moaned Miss Davis.  “My poor mother!”

Mark could not bear the unhappy tone of her voice, and turned and fled out of the room.

“Don’t believe any news those people brought you, Miss Davis,” said Hetty.  “I am sure they were impostors.”

She was longing to say, “Mark and I played a trick for fun,” but did not dare until she had first spoken to Mark.

“Why do you think so?  Hetty, is it possible you are crying for me?  I did not think you cared so much about me, my dear.”

“I am sorry, I am sorry,” cried Hetty, bursting into a fresh fit of crying; “I did not know you had a little brother, Miss Davis.”

“I have, Hetty; next to my mother he is the dearest care of my life.  I could not have told you this but for your tears.  My mother and I are very poor, Hetty, and my uncle had lately taken my boy and promised to put him forward in the world.  He is rather a wilful lad, my poor darling, and is very delicate besides.  Now, it seems, by my uncle’s marriage and death he has lost all the prospect he had in life.  And worst of all he has run away.  And my mother is so ill.  It will kill her.”

Miss Davis bowed her pale worn face on her hands, and Hetty, young as she was, seemed to feel the whole meaning of this poor woman’s life, her struggles to help others, her unselfish anxieties, her love of her mother and brother hidden away under a quiet, grave exterior.  What a brave part she was playing in life, in spite of her prim looks and methodical ways.  Hetty was completely carried away by the sight of her suffering, and could no longer contain her secret.  She forgot Mark’s warning looks, and his sovereign contempt, always freely expressed, for those who would blab; and she said in a low eager voice: 

“Oh, Miss Davis, I must tell the truth.  It was all a trick of me and Mark.  He made it up out of his head, without really knowing anything about your people.  Only for fun, you know.”

“What do you mean, Hetty?”

“We were the old man and woman, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford.  Indeed we were, and there are no such people.  And your uncle is neither married nor dead.  And your brother has not run away.  And your mother will be all right; and do not grieve any more, dear Miss Davis.”