suddenly, thinking that after all it might
not be wise to confide all their secrets to a stranger until he proved
himself worthy of confidence.

"Oh, you needn't trouble to tell me," replied the boy; "I shall find it
out quickly enough. I find out everything. I found you out playing up
in this tree, though you couldn't see me."

"We did not know there were any children on the other side of the wall,
so we didn't look particularly," explained Madge. "We thought an old
lady lived--"

"Old Mother Howard you mean?" interrupted the boy. "Yes, she lives
there right enough. And a rum old woman she is too!"

"Is she your mother, then?" asked John, rather puzzled by this speech.

"Rather not! I should jolly well like to see her dare to be my
mother!" said the boy indignantly. "I'm an orphan, and she says she is
some relation and has a right to bring me up. But I'll tell you
something,"--he lowered his voice mysteriously, and the others crept a
little nearer to him,--"it's my belief she is only trying to get all my
money!"

"How dreadful!" exclaimed Madge. "I didn't know that people really did
that sort of thing nowadays."

"Oh, don't they just!" said the boy, seemingly delighted by the
impression his words had produced. "I'll just tell you how she has
treated me. My father was a very rich man and I am his only child, so
of course I ought to be rich, oughtn't I? Well, I hardly ever have any
pocket-money at all!"

"We have threepence a week," said Betty with justifiable pride. But a
moment later she was sorry that she had appeared to boast of their
superior good fortune.

"Threepence a week! Do you indeed? But I dare say you have everything
you want directly you ask for it?" observed the boy very dolefully.
"What should you say if you had been left an orphan at the mercy of a
cruel guardian, who sent you first to a school where they starved you,
then to a school where they beat you, and then here where they do both?"

"Do you mean that Mrs. Howard starves and beats you?" inquired Madge,
horrified by these disclosures.

"Oh, rather! Dry bread for dinner, and if you won't eat it you are
locked up in the cellar until you do. It's quite dark, and the black
beetles crawl over you. Ugh! Have you ever had a black beetle walk
across your face?"

"No!" exclaimed Madge; "I've never touched one. Cook says she
sometimes sees them on the kitchen floor at night, but of course we are
in bed then."

"Well, th