hough I tell her it bodes well."

Anne watched for a moment the hale old gentleman briskly walking on,
the merry child frolicking hither and thither round him, and the
sturdy body-servant Ralph, without whom he never stirred, plodding
after, while Keeper, the only dog allowed to follow to the
sheepfolds, marched decorously along, proud of the distinction.
Then she went up to Lady Archfield, who could not be perfectly easy
as to the precious grandchild being left to his own devices in the
cold, while Sir Philip was sure to run into a discussion with the
shepherd over the turnips, which were too much of a novelty to be
approved by the Hampshire mind. It was quite true that she could
not watch that little adventurous spirit with the same absence of
anxiety as she had felt for her own son in her younger days, and
Anne had to devote herself to soothing and diverting her mind, till
Dr. Woodford knocked at the door to read and converse with her.

The one o'clock dinner waited for the grandfather and grandson, and
when they came at last, little Philip looked somewhat blue with cold
and more subdued than usual, and his grandfather observed severely
that he had been a naughty boy, running into dangerous places,
sliding where he ought not, and then muttered under his breath that
Sedley ought to have known better than to have let him go there.

Discipline did not permit even a darling like little Phil to speak
at dinner-time; but he fidgeted, and the tears came into his eyes,
and Anne hearing a little grunt behind Sir Philip's chair, looked
up, and was aware that old Ralph was mumbling what to her ears
sounded like: 'Knew too well.' But his master, being slightly
deaf, did not hear, and went on to talk of his lambs and of how
Sedley had joined them on the road, but had not come back to dinner.

Phil was certainly quieter than usual that afternoon, and sat at
Anne's feet by the fire, filling little sacks with bran to be loaded
on his toy cart to go to the mill, but not chattering as usual. She
thought him tired, and hearing a sort of sigh took him on her knee,
when he rested his fair little head on her shoulder, and presently
said in a low voice--

"I've seen him."

"Who? Not your father? Oh, my child!" cried Anne, in a sudden
horror.

"Oh no--the Penny Grim thing."

"What? Tell me, Phil dear, how or where?"

"By the end of the great big pond; and he threw up his arms, and
made a horrid grin." The boy trembled an