usual of such very good black silk, and those who were able to remember
what they had had for dinner, were all charitably inclined to believe
that the old man's heart had not been far from being in the right
place, at whatever angle his head had been set on.

And then by degrees curiosity moved to Mrs. Wood. Who was she? What was
she like? What was she to the miser? Would she live at the farm?

To some of these questions the carrier, who was the first to see her,
replied. She was "a quiet, genteel-looking sort of a grey-haired widow
lady, who looked as if she'd seen a deal of trouble, and was badly off."

The neighbourhood was not unkindly, and many folk were ready to be civil
to the widow if she came to live there.

"But she never will," everybody said. "She must let it. Perhaps the new
doctor might think of it at a low rent, he'd be glad of the field for
his horse. What could she do with an old place like that, and not a
penny to keep it up with?"

What she did do was to have a school there, and that was how Walnut-tree
Farm became Walnut-tree Academy.




CHAPTER III.

"What are little boys made of, made of?
What are little boys made of?"