Sally, glad to escape, was about to obey, when the Duchess, who had not moved from Sally's side during the conversation, plucked Seth Dumbrick's shirt-sleeve. Seth peered inquisitively at her.
A gleam of satisfaction came into Ned Chester's eyes.
"No, no, Duchess," said Seth good-humouredly, "I'll not hurt him. Nobody wants to do anything to him one way or the another. Go down with Sally."
But before the Duchess obeyed, she held out her hand to Ned.
"Goodbye," he said, with a triumphant glance at Seth; "there's one at all events with a heart in her bosom."
The whining tone in which he spoke was so distasteful to Seth Dumbrick that he averted his eyes from the lovely lad, and presently, when he looked up, he saw that he was alone. At the same time he observed that a pair of boots which he had newly mended was missing. For a moment he thought of pursuing the thief, but he relinquished his intention, and continued his work, with a frown on his face.
"Sally," he said, that night, when the shutters were up, "that brother of yours is a bad lot."
"I've got nothink to be fond on him for," was Sally's rejoinder. "But mother she jist worships him, she does."
"It would make her sorry to hear that he'd got into any trouble--eh, Sally?"
"It'd jist worrit the life out of her--and I'd be sorry, too."
"Pharaoh never said anything to you about your brother, did he?"
"Ah!" proceeded Seth, getting down the Bible from which he was teaching Sally to read. "If Pharaoh was to come to you in a trance, and was to tell you that Ned Chester was going away, and was never coming back again, it'd be as welcome to me as the best week's work I've ever done in my life."
But Sally was too shrewd to risk her reputation upon a chance so remote, and with reference to this subject she did not introduce Pharaoh into the conversation for many weeks. During this interval, the Duchess behaved herself in a manner which occasioned her guardian and Sally much anxiety. Sally, running home one day, after having been out with the Duchess for two or three hours, rushed down the cellar, and up again, in terror and distress.
"Oh, oh!" she cried beating her hands together. "The Duchess! The Duchess!"
"What about her?" cried Seth, starting up in alarm.