d namesake, followed him like his shadow. The discipline which
ensued was of doubtful character, for Bessy's two notions on the subject
of rearing children were embodied in cakes or slaps, as they were
respectively deserved, or rather, as she thought they were: while Mr
Barry's ideas of education lay in very oracular exhortations, stuffed
with words of as many syllables as he had the good fortune to discover.
His wife's views were hardly better. Her interference consisted only in
the invariable repetition of a formula--"Come, now, be good lads, do!"--
which certainly did not err on the side of severity. But the
grandmother, if possible, made matters worse. She had brought up her
own children in abject terror and unanswering submission; and Nature, as
usual, revenged herself by causing her never to cross the wills of her
grandchildren on any consideration. Accordingly, when Will set fire to
the barn, let the pony into the bean-field, and the cows into Farmer
Northcote's meadow, Grandmother only observed quietly that "Boys will be
boys"--an assertion which certainly could not be contradicted--and went
on spinning as before.

The amazement of Isoult Avery--who had not previously visited home for
some time--was intense. Her childhood had been a scene of obedience,
both active and passive; a birch-rod had hung behind the front door, and
nobody had ever known Anne Barry hesitate to whip a child, if there were
the slightest chance that he or she deserved it: the "benefit of the
doubt" being commonly given on the side of the birch-rod. And now, to
see these boys--wild men of the woods as they were--rush unreproached up
to the inaccessible side of Grandmother, lay violent hands upon her
inviolable hood, kiss her as if they were thinking of eating her, and
never meet with any worse penalty than a fig-cake [the Devonshire name
for a plum-cake]--this was the source of endless astonishment and
reflection to Isoult. On the whole, she congratulated herself that she
had left Kate and Walter at Bradmond.

The bride was a stranger to Isoult. She talked to Bessy about her, and
found that lady rather looked down upon her. "She was all very well,
but--"

Ah, these unended _buts_! what mischief they make in this world of ours!

Then Isoult talked to Hugh, and found that if his description were to be
trusted, Alice Wikes would be no woman at all, but an angel from Heaven.
Bessy offered to take her sister to visit the bride, and I