en asked Beth what she saw when she used to
sit looking at nothing. Then Beth would think things, and describe
them, because it seemed to please the servants. They used to be very
serious, and shake their heads and cross themselves, with muttered
ejaculations, but all the time they liked it. This encouraged Beth,
and she used to think and think of things to tell them.

Beth was exceedingly busy in her own way at this time. Her mind was
being rapidly stored with impressions, and nothing escaped her.

The four children and Kitty were put all together in one great
nursery, an arrangement of which Kitty, with the fastidious delicacy
of a strict Catholic, did not at all approve.

"Indeed, m'em," she said, "I'm thinkin' Master Jim's too sharp to be
in the nursery wid his sisters now."

"Nonsense, Kitty," Mrs. Caldwell exclaimed. "How can you be so
evil-minded? Master Jim's only a child--a baby of ten!"

"Och, thin, me'm, it's an ould-fashioned baby he is," said Kitty; "and
I'm thinkin' it's a bit of a screen or a curtain I'd like for dressin'
behind if he's to be wid us."

"I have nothing of the kind to give you," Mrs. Caldwell rejoined. And
afterwards she made merry with papa about Kitty's prudishness.

But Kitty was right as it happened. Jim had been left pretty much to
his own devices during the time he had been alone with his father at
Castletownrock. Captain Caldwell's theory was that boys would look
after themselves, "and the sooner you let 'em the sooner you'd make
men of 'em. Blood will tell, sir. Your gentleman's son is a match for
any ragamuffin"--a theory which Jim justified in many a free fight;
but, during the suspension of hostilities he hobnobbed with the
ragamuffins, who took a terrible revenge, for by the time Mrs.
Caldwell arrived Jim was thoroughly corrupted. Kitty took precautions,
however. She arranged the nursery-life so that Master Jim did not
associate with his sisters more than was absolutely necessary. She had
him up in the morning, bathed, and sent off to school before she
disturbed the little girls, and at night she never left the nursery
until he was asleep. Out of her slender purse she bought some print,
and fixed up a curtain for his sisters to dress behind, and all else
that she had to do for the children was done decently and in order.
She had almost entire charge of them, their mother being engrossed
with her husband, whose health and spirits had already begun to suffer
from overwork