MISS RAYNER’S CAT. 7

The children snatched up their hats and
jackets and scurried away, and after another
word or two with the master, Miss Rayner, too,
walked from the school-house, speaking to the
little ones who were left straggling behind the
rest and asking after this one’s bed-ridden
grandmother, or tying the scarf of another
whose fingers were struggling with it in vain.

For some distance a large party of children
travelled together, but by degrees they became
scattered. ‘Two or three vanished up one lane,
some more up another, a few went into the
cottages near, and others turned into the fields.

A little girl of twelve years old with rough
reddish golden hair, and a very small flaxen-
headed boy of six, climbed a stile and followed
a footpath through a desolate hop-garden.

These were Nellie and Harry Maine, the
youngest children of a farmer who was too
poor to have them taught at home, which was
the custom with most farmers in that neigh-
bourhood. Accordingly they went to the vil-
lage school, but made few friends among the
other scholars, whose rough ways and loud
voices frightened the quiet little Maines.

The two walked very lovingly together;