60 Turnaside Cottage.

 

Mr. Prickard’s order that I must

 

him everything
be sent to school, and his message about the cow,
and all.

“And I shan’t go back to school to-morrow,
father ?” I concluded.

“No, nor never again to that place,” said my father.
“ They shall learn that I will not stand such treat-
ment to me nor mine. Pauper’s cow, indeed! Who
cribbed a bit of our common last year for his cows,
if it was not Mr. Prickard himself?”

“So there’s an end of all the fine book-larnin’
and school-goin’,” broke in Nance. “I knowed how
*twould be from the first, I did.”

“Why did you not say so?” asked my father,
“Vou secmed as pleased as anyone.”

“’Twasn't for the likes of me to go again’ the
lady ; and you would never have believed me, what-
ever,” returned Nance. “There’s angry she'll be!
We shan’t have you a runnin’ after her no more,
there’s one thing.”

I was so upset that I answered this remark by a
fresh burst of crying, and my father having finished
his tea, ordered me to bed and went out. Nance
presently followed to give the calf its supper, and
she had hardly turned her back when Tommy crept
in on tip-toe, all grins and smiles, evidently thinking
the whole matter a capital joke.