consolations, 'but even the fragments will grow into home again here,
and you will feel very differently.'

Leonard did not answer; but after a pause said, 'Miss May, is not it
a horrid pity girls should go to school?'

'I am no judge, Leonard.'

'You see,' said the boy, 'after the little girls were born, my mother
had no time for Ave, and sent her to Brighton, and there she begged
to stay on one half after another, learning all sorts of things; but
only coming home for short holidays, like company, for us to wonder
at her and show her about, thinking herself ever so much in advance
of my poor mother, and now she knows just nothing at all of her!'

'You cannot tell, Leonard, and I am sure she has been devoted to
you.'

'If she had stayed at home like you, she might have known how to let
one alone. Oh, you can't think what peace it was yesterday!'

'Was it peace? I feared it was desertion.'

'It is much better to be by oneself, than always worried. To have
them always at me to get up my spirits when the house is miserable--'

'Ah,' said Ethel, 'I remember your mother rejoicing that she had not
to send you from home, and saying you were always so kind and gentle
to her.'