Envy induced Wilberforce to run away a few days after Frederick
returned with his great tales of adventure, privation and gallantry.
He got no farther from home than White Plains, and was back at Seawood
before nine o'clock at night on the day of his flight, yet he had
enjoyed so many hair-raising experiences, rescued so many lovely girls
from all manner of perils, and soundly thrashed so many unprincipled
varlets, that even Melissa's narratives became weak and puerile when
put up against the tales he told to his pop-eyed brothers and sisters.
He did not mention the sound thrashing that he sustained at the hands
of Mrs. Bingle, however, nor did he attempt to account for the bitter
howls that began to issue from behind the closed library doors almost
simultaneously with his return to Seawood. These howls, it may be
added, had a great deal to do with the decline of enthusiasm among the
other boys. Wilberforce's adventure in the library was the one that
made the deepest impression on them.

And this summary paddling of young Wilberforce, in direct opposition
to the wishes of his foster-father, who would have punished him in a
less drastic fashion, brings us to the gravest of Mr. Bingle's
worries: the curious change in Mrs. Bingle's attitude toward the
children.

From being a loving, kind, sympathetic mother she lapsed into the
opposite in every particular. Her querulousness, impatience, even
antipathy became more and more marked as the summer advanced and Mr.
Bingle, in dire distress, consulted Dr. Fiddler. She scolded
incessantly, spanked frequently, complained from morning till night,
and suffered headaches, neuritis and kindred ailments to such an
extent that the good doctor might well have been pardoned for looking