The Clever Woman of the Family

free, as sag

ve, and fr

ion lives

ls her more

ING

re out, she undertook to convey Fanny to call upon her, and was off with a wonderfully moderate allowance of children, only the two youngest boys outside with their maid. This drive brought more to light about Fa

eneral had been to spare Fanny, and she had been scarcely made aware of the danger, and not allowed to witness the suffering. The chivalrous old man who had taken on himself the charge of her, still regarded the young mother of his children as almost as much of a baby herself, and devoted himself all the more to sparing her trouble, and preventing her from feeling more thrown upon her by her mother's death. The notion of training her to act alone never even occurred to him, and when he was thrown from his horse, and carried into a wayside-hut to die, his first orders were that no

grown the provisions of a former one, which had besides designated her mother, and a friend since dead, as guardians. Haste, and the conscio

with the birth of the little girl, the daughter that Sir Stephen had so much wished for, coming too late to be welcomed by him, but awakening her mother to tearful joy and renewed powers of life. The nine months of little Stephana's life had been a tone of continual change and variety, of new interests and occupations, and of the resumption of a feeling of health which had scarcely been tasted since the first plunge into warm climates. Perhaps it was unreasona

ere that Conrade had some slight amount of consideration for the limbs of his lesser followers, or whether the fact were-what Rachel did not remotely imagine-that he was less utterly unmanageable with her sister than with herself, certain it is that the brothers went into still more intolerable places, and treated their guardian as ducklings treat an old hen. At last they quite disappeared from the view round a projecting point of rock, and when she turned it, she found a battle royal going on over an old lobster-pot-Conrade hand to hand with a stout fisher-boy, and Francis and sundry amphibious creatures of both sexes exchanging a hail of stones, water-smoothed bric

ugh forelock, looked sheepish, and said, "Pleas

rade. "I was just looking in, and t

if you had been behaving properly. Zack was quite right to protect his father's p

hand, and when the ceremony had been gone through, put his hands in his pockets, produced a shilling, and said, "There, that's in case I did the thing any harm." Rachel would have preferred Zach

p the peace, and that they must settle their little affairs between themselves. It was the most innocent diversion in which she could hope to see them indulge. She only desired that it might last them past a thrush's nest, in the hedge between the park and plantation, a some

e to be taken,

ds the Major could get me," said Conrade,

harm in taking that; but

This sport lasted a good while, but at last the sisters, who had relaxed their attention a little, perceived that Conrade and Hubert were both missing, and on Rachel's inquiry where they were, she received from Francis that elegant stock answer, "in their skins." However, they came to light in process of time, the two mothers returned home, and Mrs. Curtis and Grace had the conversation almost in their own hands. Rachel was too much tired to do anything but read the new number of her favourite "Traveller's Magazine," listening to her mother with one ear, and gathering additional impressions of Sir Stephen Temple's imprudence, and the need

thought would be very good reading for Fanny. Her search had been just completed when Grace returned home from church, looking a good deal distressed. "My poor thr

was but too evident. Grace, however, said in her own sweet manner that she believed boys could not resist a nest, and thought it mere womanhood to intercede for such lawful game. She thought it would b

ed the boy's word, and it is my busine

before her arrival, she summoned Conrade, and addressed him with, "Well, Conrade, I knew that y

who says I have," hot

ve your word to me not to take y

t," said Con

she said. "I know your mamma will be exceedingly grieved. You must have fallen into very sad ways to be able to utter

k face looked

took the nest, and have broken

the brown cheek, and t

d Hubert went away together. Your Aunt Grace found it gone this morning, and

a

say I must tell al

s, and preparing Fanny in private, but recollecting that this would give him the opportunity of prepar

onrade's own sake that I do it. It was a cruel thing to take a bird's-nest at all, but worse when he knew that his Aunt Grace

Fanny, quite confounded, "Yo

as she held out her hand, positively encouraging

ome without being only too certain." And she gave the facts, to which Fanny listened with pale cheeks and tearful eye

wrenching his hand away, an

ived that Hubert had been within hearing all the time, though to be sure the

come and tell me where you and Con went yesterday, when the others w

. "Never mind her, sh

d you go,

the little bird

good little boy. Did y

fiercely at him, "Yes you did, Con, you to

you do with it

p in the tree," s

" said the moth

nly that Conrade is a worse boy than I had thought him

of comforting Miss Temple had been gone through, the court of justice adjourned, Rachel opening the door of Conrade's little room, and recommending solitary imprisonment there till he should be brought to confession. She did not at all reckon on hi

ced that it must be a mistake. Conrade

persist

ing him. If it had been Francie, now; but I ne

because you alw

often heard the Major say he coul

a discovery, but it was far worse to let deceit go on undetected; and if only they

door? Has he broken

p for. I beg your pardon, dear Rachel; I am very sony for the poor

le, Fanny-the evidence," and

Fanny, "that some boy ma

s-throw from Randall's lodge. It will be the most fatal thing in the world to let your weakness be imposed

urst in

you it is so to me. Perhaps it would be best if I were to lock him

rose

wrong, and I won't have him locked up! Go away! If anything is to be done to my boys,

e so foolish?-as if I

his life!" cried the mother, with a flush in her cheeks and a bright gla

ck's mother to reason by threats of expulsion from the shoe-club, she observed, "Well Fanny, one thing is clear, while you

a great deal of trouble, but Conrade declares he will never say a l

ere's an end of it. I a

's lamentable weakness, and prognostications of the misery she was entailing on herself. Her mother and sister were both much concerned, and thought Fanny extremely foolish; Mrs. Curtis consoling herself with the hope that the boys would be cured and tamed at school, and begging that they might never be let loos

but, alas! without coming a bit nearer the truth. Nothing was seen or heard of Lady Temple till, at half-past nine, one of th

hasty, I could not sleep without

onvinced? I kne

him again, it would have been insulting him; but he went over it all of himself, and owned he ought not to have put a finger on the edge of the nest, but he wanted so to see what it

nce. It made her bristle up again, so that even Rachel saw the impossibility of pressing it, and trusted to some signal confutation to cure her of her infatuation. But she was as affectionate as ever, only wan

I should like to make them ask pardon, only I don't think Francie would. I'm afraid they are very rude boys. I must write to the Major to f