for protection, it returned to his mother’s side in her boudoir.  But Robert had been there before him, and had already manufactured a story redounding to Charles’s discredit, and provoking both his mother’s and father’s anger, the latter of whom at Robert’s instance, even struck the gallant-hearted boy a severe blow with the flat of his hand as a punishment for what he denominated an interference with his brother’s sport.

Charles said nothing; he knew the prejudice which Robert’s constant misrepresentations had created against him in his parents’ breasts; he realized too, young as he was, that it was useless for him to attempt to explain, though he felt the injustice of this treatment; and so with a quivering lip he turned away from the scene and went in his wet clothes to the servants’ hall where he might dry them.  He said nothing, but looked much sadder than usual as he stood there before the fire.  A coarse but honest servant, Leonard Hust, who had been born on the estate, and whose father before him had been a servant in Sir Robert’s household, came stealthily to Charles’s side and busied himself in helping him to arrange his clothes and dry them, while he smoothed the boy’s hair and wiped his face.

“Never mind, master Charles,” said the honest fellow, noticing the trembling lips of the handsome boy; “never mind, it’s a gallant act in you, and though I say it, who shouldn’t, perhaps, master Robert never would have dared to do it; he hasn’t got half your courage and strength, though he’s bigger and older.”

A tear was all the answer that the boy vouchsafed to his honest effort at consolation.  He too proud to make a confidant of the servant, or to confide to him of his father’s conduct, or even that of Robert.  Leonard Hust watched the boy carefully, and entered keenly into his feelings, until at last he said: 

“I wasn’t the only one who saw you save her ladyship’s pet, master Charles.”

“It wasn’t father or mother that saw it?” asked Charles, quickly, as he recalled the injustice he had just experienced at their hands, under Robert’s prompting.

“No, master Charles.”

“Was it cousin Helen?” continued the boy.

“Yes, master Charles,” answered Leonard Hust, with a knowing smile.

“O,” said the boy, as a glow of pleasure lit up his features for a moment.

It was evident that the knowledge of the said cousin Helen’s having seen his exertions to save the little favorite spaniel, gave Charles not a little satisfaction.  Now cousin Helen—­as a little blue-eyed child of eight years, the daughter of the family whose estate joined that of Bramble Park, was called—­was no cousin at all, but the children had thus nicknamed each other, and they were most happy playmates together.  Robert, who was three years his brother’s senior, was more fond of little Helen than of anybody else; indeed, in spite of his ill temper, he was wont to try and please her at any cost.  But the child, who was as beautiful as a little fairy, did not respond at all to his advances of friendship, while to Charles she was all tenderness and confiding in everything, kissing him with childish fervor and truth whenever they parted, a familiarity she never permitted to his brother.