that,' said Dr. May emphatically. 'There was a scapegrace
brother that ran away, and was heard of no more till he turned up, a
wealthy man, ten or fifteen years ago, and bought what they call the
Vintry Mill, some way on this side of Whitford. He has a business on a
large scale; but Ward had as little intercourse with him as possible.
A terrible old heathen.'

'And the boy that was expelled for bullying Tom is in the business.'

'I hate the thought of that,' said the Doctor. 'If he had stayed on,
who knows but he might have turned out as well as Ned Anderson.'

'Has not he?'

'I'm sure I have no right to say he has not, but he is a flashy slang
style of youth, and I hope the young Wards will keep out of his way.'

'What will become of them? Is there likely to be any provision for
them?'

'Not much, I should guess. Poor Ward did as we are all tempted to do
when money goes through our hands, and spent more freely than I was
ever allowed to do. Costly house, garden, greenhouses--he'd better
have stuck to old Axworthy's place in Minster Street--daughter at that
grand school, where she cost more than the whole half-dozen of you put
together.'

'She was more worth it,' said Ethel; 'her music and drawing are
first-rate. Harry was frantic about her singing last time he was at
home--one evening when Mrs. Anderson abused his good-nature and got him
to a tea-party--I began to be afraid of the consequences.'

'Pish!' said the Doctor.

'And really they kept her there to enable her to educate her sisters,'
said Ethel. 'The last time I called on poor Mrs. Ward, she told me all
about it, apologizing in the pretty way mothers do, saying she was
looking forward to Averil's coming home, but that while she profited so
much, they felt it due to her to give her every advantage; and did not
I think--with my experience--that it was all so much for the little
ones' benefit? I assured her, from my personal experience, that
ignorance is a terrible thing in governessing one's sisters. Poor
thing! And Averil had only come home this very Easter.'

'And with everything to learn, in such a scene as that! The first day,
when only the boys were ill, there sat the girl, dabbling with her
water-colours, and her petticoats reaching half across the room,
looking like a milliner's doll, and neither she nor her poor mother
dreaming of her doing a useful matter.'

'Who is spiteful now, papa? That's all envy at not having such an
acco