ter what we thought of doing
before he came, when he once set foot in the room everything followed
his dictation. It was n't that he was overbearing or tyrannical in
the least; just as little could you say that he was insinuating or
nattering; but somehow, by a kind of instinct, we fell into his ways,
and worked out all his suggestions just as if we were mere agents of his
will. Resistance or opposition we never dreamed of while he was present;
but after he was gone away, once or twice there came the thought that
there was something very like slavery in all this submission, and we
began to concert how we might throw off the yoke.

"'I won't play toll-bar any more,' said I, resolutely; 'all my
pocket-money is sure to go before it is over.'

"'And I,' said Matty, 'won't have poor "Mopsy" tried for a murder again;
every time she's hanged, some of the wax comes off her neck.'"

"We encouraged each other vigorously in these resolves; but before he
was half an hour in the house 'Mopsy' had undergone the last sentence
of the law, and I was insolvent."

"What a clever rogue he must have been!" said Bella, laughing.

"Was n't he clever!" exclaimed Kellett. "You could not say how,--nobody
could say how,--but he saw everything the moment he came into a new
place, and marked every one's face, and knew, besides, the impression he
made on them, just as if he was familiar with them for years."

"Did you continue to associate with him as you grew up?" asked she.

"No; we only knew each other as children. There was a distressing
thing--a very distressing thing--occurred one day; I'm sure to this very
hour I think of it with sorrow and shame, for I can't believe he had
any blame in it. We were playing in a room next my father's study,
and running every now and then into the study; and there was an
old-fashioned penknife--a family relic, with a long bloodstone
handle--lying on the table; and when the play was over, and Davy, as we
called him, had gone home, this was missing. There was a search made
for it high and low, for my father set great value on it. It was his
great-great-grandmother's, I believe; at all events, no one ever set
eyes on it afterwards, and nothing would persuade my father but that
Davy stole it! Of course he never told us that he thought so, but the
servant did, and Matty and myself cried two nights and a day over it,
and got really sick.

"I remember well; I was working by myself in the garden, Matty was
ill