‘Hold your tongue,’ muttered Alfred moodily, as if each of her words gave him unbearable pain; and he hid his face in the pillow.

Ellen kept silence for ten minutes, and then broke forth again, ’Now then, Alfred, you will be glad!  There’s Miss Jane getting over the stile.’

‘I don’t want Miss Jane,’ grumbled Alfred; and as Ellen sprang up and began smoothing his coverings, collecting her scraps, and tidying the room, already so neat, he growled again, ‘What a racket you keep!’

’There, won’t you be raised up to see her?  She does look so pretty in her new pink muslin, with a double skirt, and her little hat and feather, that came from London; and there’s Puck poking in the hay—­ he’s looking for a mouse!  And she’s showering the hay over him with her parasol!  Oh, look, Alfred!’ and she was going to lift him up, but he only murmured a cross ‘Can’t you be quiet?’ and she let him alone, but went on talking:  ’Ah, there’s Puck’s little tail wriggling out—­hinder-end foremost—­here he comes—­they are touching their hats to her now, the farmer and all, and she nods just like a little queen!  She’s got her basket, Alfred.  I wonder what she has for you in it!  Oh dear, there’s that strange boy on the bridge!  She won’t like that.’

‘Why, what would he do to her?  He won’t bite her,’ said Alfred.

’Oh, if he spoke to her, or begged of her, she’d be so frightened!  There, he looked at her, and she gave such a start.  You little vagabond!  I’d like to—­’

’Stuff! what could he do to her, with all the hay-field and Farmer Shepherd there to take care of her?  What a fuss you do make!’ said poor Alfred, who was far too miserable just then to agree with any one, though at almost any other time he would have longed to knock down any strange boy who did but dare to pass Miss Selby without touching his cap; and her visits were in general the very light of his life.

They were considered a great favour; for though old Lady Jane Selby was a good, kind-hearted person, still she had her fancies, and she kept her young grand-daughter like some small jewel, as a thing to be folded up in a case, and never trusted in common.  She was afraid to allow her to go about the village, or into the school and cottages, always fancying she might be made ill, or meet with some harm; but Mrs. King being an old servant, whom she knew so well, and the way lying across only two meadows beyond Friarswood Park, the little pet was allowed to go so far to visit her foster-mother, and bring whatever she could devise to cheer the poor sick boy.

Miss Jane, though of the same age as Ellen, and of course with a great deal more learning and accomplishment, had been so little used to help herself, or to manage anything, that she was like one much younger.  The sight of the rough stranger on the bridge was really startling to her, and she came across the road and garden as fast as she could without a run; and the first thing the brother and sister heard, was her voice saying rather out of breath and fluttered, ’Oh, what a horrid-looking boy!’