the young people at play, and who was a motherly kind of woman, advanced
into the room and offered to take the charge of the child and comfort
him before she put him to bed. Marten was most thankful for this offer,
and you may be sure Mary was not sorry to part with the sobbing boy, and
thus Marten put it out of his own power to keep his voluntary boast to
Nurse at home about sleeping with his brother, for when the riotous
evening closed, for it was a very riotous evening, Reuben had been
asleep some hours, and in a quarter of the house appropriated to the use
of the young ladies where beds were as plentiful as requisite on an
occasion like the present. Marten then had nothing for it but to beg
Mary to see after his brother, which the young lady as thoughtlessly
promised to do, and then he accompanied his young companions to that
department of the house appropriated to the use of the boys, where, as
might be expected after a little more rude sport, he fell into a sleep
so profound and long, that every thought of Reuben was banished from his
mind. And now, to return to the poor baby, the victim of mismanagement,
or of his brother's self-conceit. Sobbing and roaring he was carried or
dragged up stairs, undressed, and put to bed, where the extreme violence
of his grief proved its own relief, for he fell asleep with the tear in
his eye, and long long after the cause of sorrow was forgotten, his sobs
might be heard proclaiming that the effect even now had not passed away.
By and bye, however, the calm of sleep restored him more to himself
again, and before the motherly woman who had taken pity on him left the
chamber, he was sleeping the refreshing sleep of childhood.

As the young people had gone to bed so late the evening before, for it
was quite twelve o'clock, and the next day was also to be a day of
indulgence, it was nearly half-past eight before Marten awoke, and what
with one thing and another it was quite nine before he had an
opportunity of asking any one after Reuben, or indeed of discovering