on the gate, and went on and came to the stile, talking all the way,
almost as if she had been making game of us. Did she not, Emily?"

"Really, my dear boy," replied Mr. Fairchild, forcing himself to smile,
"you must try to make your story plainer, or we shall be more in the
dark at the end of it than we were at the beginning. All I now
understand is, that you and Emily climbed over the roof of the barn
after somebody. Well, and I hope you got no fall in this strange
exploit?"

"You are not angry, papa?" said Lucy. "Henry has often been on the
thatch of the barn and never got hurt."

"I did not say I was angry, my dear," replied Mr. Fairchild. "I might
say that it was neither safe nor prudent for little girls to scramble
up such places, and I might say, do not try these things again; but if
no harm was intended, why was I to be angry? But I must hear a more
straightforward story than Henry has told me; he has not given me the
name of the person who went chattering before him and Emily; was it a
fairy, a little spiteful fairy, Emily? Did you let her out of a box, as
the princess did in the fairytale? And what has all this to do with
your refusing your suppers? Come, Emily, let us hear your account of
this affair."

Poor Emily had been sadly put out by all that had passed between Henry
and her father; and she, therefore, looked very red when she began her
story. But she got courage as she went on, and told it all, just as it
is related in the last chapter; only she passed slightly over the
wilfulness which her brother had shown in opening the cage door. She
finished by saying, that as they had given away their suppers, they had
agreed together not to eat another; "and we settled not to tell our
reasons till the things were taken away."

"Yes, papa," added Henry, "we did."

"And this is all, my Emily?" said Mrs. Fairchild. "I will own that I
was fearful there was something much amiss;" and she put out her hand
to her little girl and boy, and having kissed them, she added, "Now, my
children, sit down and eat."

"And we will all sup together," cried Lucy, with her brightest,
happiest smile, "and afterwards open the basket."

"And I will do more than give each of you a slice of lamb," said Mr.
Fairchild. "I am going to-morrow to pay a visit to Mr. Darwell; I have
put this visit off too long; and I will call on Mr. Burke, Sir Charles
Noble's steward, and inquire about these poor people. What is the name
of the old