ed
to the kitchen to find the house-maid, who was called nurse, as she had
been Reuben's nurse before she had changed her occupation in the family,
the child no longer requiring a personal attendant. In the kitchen
Marten learnt that she was gone out into the garden to gather some herbs
for the cook, and thither he followed her to tell her that his friend
Edward Jameson had been with him, and what had been the purport of his
visit.

"Nurse," said Marten, when he found her, "I am come to ask you to get
mine and Reuben's things ready to-night, for I am going to take him with
me to spend a couple of days at Mr. Jameson's; and there will be company
there in the evenings, so we must have our best things, nurse, and will
you be so kind as to see after the doves, and tell Thomas to loosen
Nero's chain every day, that he may have a good scamper over the
fields, for papa says he should have plenty of exercise."

"Stop, stop, master Marten," replied nurse, "what is all this about?
your things and master Reuben's, do you say, are to be got ready for two
day's visit--and the doves fed? am I to find them before I feed them,
master Marten?" and nurse laughed.

"They are found, nurse," answered the boy, "and they are now safe in the
aviary, and I will take care the door shall not be opened again while
mamma is away. I mean to put a padlock on, nurse, so you see no one can
let them out, and I shall keep the key myself."

"Oh! master Marten, master Marten!" said nurse, laughing again--"I see,
if it depended upon you, we should all be in a bad way, and so the poor
birds are to be locked up, are they: and master Reuben is not to be
allowed to go into the aviary to talk to them, as the little one loves
to do--and all for what? Give me a steady ruler, if you please--not such
as you, master Marten--a fine head of a family you will make, if one may
judge of your boasted management of the doves in the first part of the
story, and then the leaving the aviary door open and finishing with
locking them up and keeping the key yourself. Well for their
happiness--mistress will soon be at home to attend to them herself; but
what are you going to do with the child, my own darling? I can't have
any tricks played with him, I tell you."

"Tricks, nurse," repeated Marten passionately. "What? do you mean to say
I would play tricks with my own brother? No one loves Reuben, I am sure,
better than I do, unless it is mamma. What do you mean, nurse?"

"Wh