to see him?"

"No; Mr. Enderby said he was too far off, so he left a trooper to
guard us, and my mother only took her little babe with her. Don't
you remember, Walter, how Eleanor screamed after her, as she rode
away on the colonel's horse; and how we could not comfort the little
ones, till they had cried themselves to sleep, poor little things?
And in the morning she came back, and told us our dear father was
dead! O Walter, how can we look back to that day, and rejoice in a
new war? How can you wonder her heart should sink at sounds of joy
which have so often ended in tears?"

Walter twisted about and muttered, but he could not resist his
sister's earnest face and tearful eyes, and said something about not
making so much noise in the house.

"There's my own dear brother," said Rose. "And you won't tease
Deborah?"

"That is too much, Rose. It is all the sport I have, to see the
faces she makes when I plague her about Diggory. Besides, it serves
her right for having such a temper."

"She has not a good temper, poor thing!" said Rose; "but if you would
only think how true and honest she is, how hard she toils, and how
ill she fares, and yet how steadily she holds to us, you would surely
not plague and torment her."

Rose was interrupted by a great outcry, and in rushed Deborah,
screaming out, "Lack-a-day! Mistress Rose! O Master Walter! what